


Through Icy Fires

by angeldevastation



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Dragon Mates, F/M, M/M, Natsu goes through mating season, post-GMG, will update tags and pairings as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2019-09-13 20:19:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 44,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeldevastation/pseuds/angeldevastation
Summary: Team Natsu get a request to stop a dark guild from running rampant around Crocus but Natsu is feeling a bit under the weather when he realizes something that he isn't ready to accept.Gratsu with a side of Gevy and LaLu





	1. Chapter 1

Lucy absolutely hated the cold. The freeze on Mt. Hakobe was like a chill that seeped into her bones and refused to leave, even weeks after she returned to Magnolia. Initially, she hadn’t understood why she needed to accompany Gray and Natsu on the job to retrieve the special herb from the snowy mountain until she remembered how much the two wizards fought when left alone.  
Either one of them could have handled the job by themselves. As a fire wizard, Natsu was more than capable of braving the cold and collecting the herb and with Gray’s abilities as an ice wizard he would have not only been able to keep up with the cold but keep the herb frozen until it was brought to their client.  
It would be an easy job for the two of them if it hadn’t been for their compulsive need to fight. That was the exact reason Lucy was there playing mediator instead of Erza, who was off on a job with Happy, Wendy, and Carla.  
The blonde shivered for what felt like the thousandth time in the course of the hour they had been on the summit as she looked in front of her at her pink haired teammate. Natsu hadn’t spoken much in the last twenty or so minutes, an unusual feature coming from the typically loud dragon slayer. A glance at Gray informed her that he had also noticed the change in their teammate. While it concerned her, she wasn’t sure if it was something she should bring up just yet.  
“How close do you think we are to this herb? I’m starting to lose feeling in my fingers.” Lucy’s complaint was less to motivate the two guys into moving faster than it was to get a reaction out of her suspiciously quiet teammate. Still, Natsu said nothing as he continued walking. He didn’t even look back at her to check if she was still following him like he usually did. Lucy shared a look with Gray who mirrored her concern.  
“Hey Flamebrain, what’s up with you?” Regardless of his concern for his teammate, Gray couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his tone. Lucy almost wanted to smack the ice wizard for what he was saying, yet noticed that Natsu hadn’t reacted like normal. Natsu hadn’t reacted at all.  
“Natsu? Is everything okay? You haven’t said anything in almost half an hour.” Now Lucy was beginning to get extremely worried. This was nothing like the Natsu she knew and she had no idea how to handle him like this.  
“Whatever. Let’s just finish the damn job and deal with the idiot later, Lucy.” Gray stated in annoyance once he realized that they weren’t going to get through to Natsu. The ice wizard continued on in front of the blonde with a huff, pushing past the pink haired wizard without a second thought. The reward for this job wasn’t worth spending so long out there that Lucy would get sick, so the best option would be for them to finish the job as soon as possible and get off the mountain. Then they could focus on what was wrong with Natsu.

Natsu couldn’t recall ever feeling so strange in his life. Or so cold. As a fire mage, he never had to worry about getting cold or even getting too hot. His magic always kept him at a temperature that suited him just perfectly. However, that morning when he woke up he felt...off. At first, he couldn’t put his finger on it. He thought it was the fact that he was going on a job without Happy, but he didn’t think that was right. He and Happy had gone on separate jobs before and he hadn’t felt like...this. This felt like he was on edge but at the same time, it was like his senses weren’t as sharp as they should have been. Natsu almost wanted to back out of the job, but that would be admitting that something was wrong and he refused to do that.  
As soon as they stepped on Mt. Hakobe, he realized that something was terribly wrong. Natsu, fire dragon slayer, son of Igneel, was cold. He felt the chill on his skin all the time but he never really felt it like he did now. He could feel this chill in his muscles and it felt unsettling. Uncomfortable. This was a feeling he wasn’t used to and Natsu didn’t know how to handle it.  
That’s why he wasn’t talking to Gray and Lucy. He knew they were worried and while he appreciated it, he was embarrassed to admit this to them. Gray was an ice wizard used to dealing with the cold. Lucy, while not as adept to the cold as Gray, had more experience with than Natsu. Not to mention how often the fire wizard had teased Lucy over her complaints of the weather on the mountain had been quite excessive whenever they took a job there.  
Internally, Natsu was thankful that Gray had a good head on his shoulders. He knew that the job was more important than what was wrong with him. Natsu has never been sick, doubted that even with his newfound coldness he would get sick just from being on the snowy mountain, but Lucy has been known to get sick easier than either of them. Getting her off the mountain sooner took priority over him. For them to do that, they needed to finish the job. 

Finding the herb took a bit more time than they had hoped, with Natsu not being as talkative as usual. He would point them in general directions but nothing more than that, claiming the snow was throwing off the scent of the herb. In truth, his sense of smell wasn’t as great as it normally was and he was struggling to keep up with the scent of the herb like he would, had his body been behaving as it should have. 

As soon as they did track the herb down, and fought off a bunch of Vulcans to get to it, Gray surrounded it in ice so it wouldn’t wilt as they took it down the mountain. From there, the three moved quickly towards the bottom of the summit. The longer they walked, the worse Natsu started to feel. He knew he should have said something, Gray and Lucy were his friends and would have understood that he didn’t know what was going on with his body, but he also knew that they would probably make fun of him for it as well as take care of him.  
Along with feeling the chill in his muscles, he began to feel hot, and achy. Almost like he had just finished an intense workout or training. Yet the job wasn’t that difficult and, in fact, he hadn’t done much of the work. There wasn’t any reason he could think of that he should feel like this. Natsu paused and looked up at Gray and Lucy’s retreating backs. The two had been talking quietly since they found the herb and he wasn’t sure they were going to hear him.  
“Hey, guys-” Natsu’s words were cut off by his world going black. 

A sudden thud brought Lucy and Gray’s attention from their current conversation to the quiet mage that had been walking behind them. Only now he was no longer following them and was lying face flat on the ground.  
“Natsu!” Lucy called out his name as she rushed to his side. Gray followed her closely behind after he made sure that the herb was safely tucked away in his bag. Lucy was trying to wake the unconscious dragon slayer to no avail.  
“He’s completely out of it,” Gray stated once he got a good look at Natsu. His concern for the fire mage grew to new heights as he tried to figure out just what was wrong. “We need to take him to Wendy.”  
Gray handed Lucy his bag to carry before he pulled Natsu onto his back. The train station was closer than their client’s house so he told Lucy to finish the job for them then meet him at the station. Gray would be able to get them tickets, having taken his wallet from his bag before giving it to Lucy, and look after Natsu until Lucy arrived so they could return home. Hopefully, by the time they returned, Wendy and Erza would have returned from their job as well. 

Lucy hurried to their client’s house to turn in the herb and collect the reward. Thankfully for her, the client understood when she told him that the team was in a hurry to return to Fairy Tail and she needed to catch the train. When Lucy arrived at the train station, she found Gray easily enough sitting on one of the benches with Natsu laying next to him.  
“Have you purchased tickets yet?” She asked when she approached him and the sleeping dragon slayer.  
“Next train headed to Magnolia leaves in twenty minutes.” He replied with a slight nod. He would feel much better when they were on their way back to Magnolia rather than just sitting in the train station waiting, but he knew that there wasn’t much they could do there until the train was ready to depart. “Let’s get him boarded.”  
It took a lot less effort to get Natsu on the train and situated than it should have, but after years of dealing with Natsu’s motion sickness both Lucy and Gray were quite used to handling the dragon slayer. 

The train ride was quiet. Lucy and Gray had less to talk about than they did on the mountain, and talk of their worry for Natsu only seemed to make both more worried. Both mages were anxious to get back to Magnolia and get their friend looked at. Without the blue exceed around to make comments, the ride was even quieter than normal too, with made Lucy almost miss Happy’s constant poking at her.  
“He’ll be okay, right Gray?” She asked quietly, looking down at where Natsu’s head was resting on her thigh.  
“Of course he will. He’s Natsu. He’s too stubborn to let whatever this is take him down.” Gray had to believe that. Natsu wouldn’t let just anything bring him down. Still, his lips tugged down in a frown as he stared at his longtime rival with concern. 

As soon as the train pulled into Magnolia station, Gray was up and pulling Natsu onto his back once more. Lucy immediately collected their belongings and followed the ice wizard off the train. Thankfully for them, the walk from the station to the guild hall was a short one, and when she opened the large doors for Gray to walk through them she was unable to keep from letting out a small sigh of relief when she saw Erza and Wendy at their usual table. Lucy immediately made her way to the two mages while Gray took Natsu to the infirmary, both of them ignoring the alarmed looks their nakama were giving them.  
“Wendy, we need you to look at Natsu! Something’s wrong with him!” Lucy couldn’t keep the urgency out of her voice as she stopped in front of the small dragon slayer. Wendy was already standing and preparing to head up to the infirmary by the time Lucy had finished her sentence. With a soft smile, the small blue haired mage nodded before her expression turned to one of pure determination. Wendy moved past Lucy and made a beeline for the stairs leading to the infirmary to check on the fire dragon slayer.  
“Lucy,” Erza called as she placed a hand on the blonde’s shoulder to keep her from following after the younger dragon slayer. The redhead waited until she had the celestial mage’s attention before continuing. “What happened? I thought it was an easy job.”  
“The job was easy. We completed it rather quickly but...Natsu was acting strange the entire time and when we let Hakobe he completely collapsed. And he hasn’t woken up since.” Lucy spoke quietly as she kept her gaze pointed away from everyone. “And when we were on the train...his skin was cold. It was as if his magic wasn’t working properly.”  
Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes as the worry and concern Lucy had been holding in was finally released. Arms wrapped around her shoulders and she was pulled into an armor-clad chest as Erza held her in a tight hug. Through the tears that fell freely, a smile formed on her lips and the blonde mage clung to her friend’s arms like a lifeline.  
No one noticed as Gajeel, the only other dragon slayer in the guild that afternoon, slipped away from the commotion and up into the infirmary. 

Gray was still sitting with Natsu as Wendy rushed in. Immediately he backed away from the bed he had placed the fire mage in, though a part of him wanted to stay by his side. He frowned as the thought crossed his mind and he shook it off as nothing more than concern for his normally obnoxious teammate. Internally he knew, regardless of how much he wanted to remain by Natsu’s side Gray had to let Wendy work her magic on the pink haired mage. Otherwise, Natsu would never get better.  
Wendy seemed to take her time looking over Natsu before trying a variety of different spells. As she worked, Gajeel slipped in and took a seat next to Gray silently. As curious as he was for the iron dragon slayer’s presence, he was more concerned about how quiet the smallest dragon slayer was being as she looked over their friend.  
“I don’t know what’s wrong with him…” Wendy said after a few more minutes of silence. She turned around and looked over at the two older mages with a sorrowful look. Gray knew not having the answers must have been hard on her as a healer.  
“It’s alright, munchkin.” Gajeel’s tone was one that Gray had never heard from him before. It still had the roughness it usually held but was still soft in a way the ice mage was unaware Gajeel was capable of. “This is something that I doubt your dragon taught you how to heal because it can’t be healed.”  
Gajeel stood up and walked over to the unconscious mage. Gray was tense as he prepared for the iron mage to potentially harm his friend. Instead, Gajeel laid a hand on Natsu’s forehead for a moment then nodded to himself.  
“Gray, you and Lucy, and only you two, should take the fire idiot home and stay with him until he wakes up. Wendy, you should take Happy home with you and Carla.”  
Whatever questions the two had, Gajeel had no plans of hearing them as he walked past the two of them and walked out of the room. The iron mage didn’t stop walking until he was outside the guild and away from the questioning gazes of his guildmates. As much as he appreciated them and cared for them, the last thing he needed was any of them knowing that he knew more about dragon nature than either Natsu or Wendy. As much as Metalicana may have taunted and angered Gajeel, he still taught the young man a lot about who he was to become. If only he or the other dragons had left them with more information, this whole thing would have been easier. Maybe, just maybe, the fact that Gajeel had already gone through finding his mate would be enough to help the flame idiot through this.  
A small smile ghosted over Gajeel’s lips as he thought about his own mating. Levy had been a lot more receptive to him than he expected and he couldn’t have been any more thankful to her for that. When he first realized that she was his mate, he was nervous about telling her. Someone as intelligent and enthusiastic as Levy didn’t deserve someone who resided in the shadows like him. Yet she accepted him for who he was and took him as her mate even with his faults.  
When Gajeel’s inner dragon had decided the slayer needed his mate his magic had stopped working properly and if it hadn’t been for Lily and Levy, Gajeel probably would have died on the job he had taken. Now, it was Natsu’s time to take his mate but Gajeel couldn’t be sure if it was Gray or Lucy who was making his body react like it was. That was something that if the fire dragon slayer didn’t know already, he would have to figure out on his own. Any sort of interference by the rest of their team would only hinder his recovery. Erza better understand that if she truly wants the best for Natsu. 

“Gajeel said that?” Lucy asked the younger dragon slayer, surprise written all over her expression. Wendy had returned downstairs and informed the celestial mage of what the iron slayer had told them earlier before he left the guild.  
“He was very specific that it be you and Gray who took Natsu home. And that you stayed with him...” Wendy trailed off as if she were thinking over what the older dragon slayer said.  
“I would feel more comfortable if I accompanied them. Someone needs to watch out for them.” Erza injected as she stood from her seat. Natsu was like a brother to her just as much as Gray, and just as much as Lucy had become a sister to her. She refused to sit idly by while the three of them handled this without her.  
“Apparently this has to do with his dragon slayer traits. I doubt Gajeel will tell us any more about it but he definitely wanted only the two of them there. I think it best we trust his judgment on the situation. From what I understand, Metalicana taught him more about dragon nature and culture than our dragons taught us.” Wendy trusted Gajeel’s knowledge when it came to the dragons, so if he said that whatever was plaguing Natsu was dragon related she believed him. “Let Lucy and Gray handle this as Gajeel believes they can. The last thing we need is anyone interfering in something barely any of us understand anything about.” 

Gray, having caught the last bit of Wendy’s speech, was surprised by how quick Erza was to step down. Maybe it was because she wasn’t used to Wendy standing up to her like she was doing. Either way, it didn’t seem like Erza was going to be a problem for them.  
The ice mage was careful to bring Natsu down the stairs, knowing that surely by this time everyone in the guild knew what Gajeel had asked of him and Lucy. It wasn’t that strange in reality to watch over Natsu, but Gray realized he had never spent much time at the fire mage’s home. Typically, they were always at Lucy’s.  
Lucy held the door open for Gray as the ice wizard walked out of the guild and paused. However, his confusion on where to go didn’t last long as Lucy took the lead and began leading him towards Natsu’s home.  
“If he wakes up and tries destroying anything it’s better to be away from the city. Plus I think he’d like it if he was in his own home rather than one of ours when he wakes up, don’t you think?” She explained when he asked why they didn’t go to one of their homes. Gray couldn’t deny that logic. Natsu could be quite destructive when he wanted to be, and even more so when he didn’t mean to be.  
When they arrived at his house they could both tell just how little Natsu stayed there. The house was in serious need of some cleaning. Lucy sighed when she looked around before turning to Gray.  
“If you put him in bed I’ll start on the cleaning. We should probably check to see if there is edible food in the kitchen too.” With a nod, the two split up and Lucy called Virgo out to help her clean the disaster Natsu called a home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this story for NaNoWriMo and have about 15 chapters of it written and ready for editing. Hopefully, I can keep up with this one because I have great ideas for this story. This is my first Fairy Tail fanfic, however, I have three more planned after I get this one nearly completed and a few oneshots I plan on working on in between.  
> Let me know what you guys think!


	2. Chapter 2

It turned out that Natsu was suffering from a high fever, which was not only unusual for the dragon slayer but concerning for both of the mages helping him recover. Lucy and Gray had taken turns watching over Natsu after Lucy had finished cleaning the house and Gray had gone shopping for dinner. Lucy had spent most of the evening watching over the fire mage while Gray rested up, and now that the sun had set it was Gray’s turn. The night seemed to drag on for the ice mage with no signs that Natsu was planning on waking and he was almost ready to fall asleep in his chair. At times the fever would flare and Gray would use his ice to bring it down, but that was the most change he was getting from Natsu.   
Just when Gray had stood up to grab a blanket for himself, one Lucy had Virgo bring from her home for them to use, there was a slight rustle from the bed that indicated movement. He looked down just in time to notice Natsu’s eyes flutter open. Quickly grabbing the blanket, Gray returned to his seat by Natsu and offered the other mage a soft smile.   
“Hey there, sleepy head…” He kept his voice soft and quiet in case Natsu wasn’t up to hearing loud noises yet.  
“Gray?” Natsu’s voice was laced with sleep and Gray couldn’t help but find it both adorable and almost attractive. With a small shake of his head, he dispelled that thought from his mind and returned his attention to helping Natsu get better.   
“Feeling any better?” Gray hadn’t moved to put the blanket over his shoulders like he had planned to as he waited to make sure that his friend was okay. This was the first any of them had talked to him since their job earlier that morning and his brain had gone a bit overboard with all thoughts on what could be wrong.   
“I’m hot…and cold” Natsu couldn’t explain what he was feeling quite right. He felt hot but at the same time cold and clammy. Was this what it was like to be sick? If it was Natsu hoped he never got sick again. “Warm me up?”  
Gray was shocked and stared at the pink haired mage for a moment in surprise but even he couldn’t resist Natsu’s pleading eyes. Finally, he climbed into bed and pulled the fire mage into his chest. He tugged the blankets over them both before allowing Natsu to get comfortable once more. The strange thing was, holding Natsu in such a way didn’t feel wrong at all. He had never seen Natsu so calm before nor had he ever even thought about sharing a bed with the rambunctious fire mage. Yet, having him in his arms made Gray’s heart flutter in a way he never imagined it would. They were supposed to be rivals. Gray could handle them constantly fighting and picking on each other. Being attracted to his longtime friend and rival was another matter entirely.   
“Smell...nice Gray…” The mumbled confession took Gray by surprise and when he looked down at Natsu’s face he realized that some time while he had been thinking Natsu had fallen asleep. “...always liked...your scent…”  
Those words threw his already confused mind into a spiral of more confusion. Was it possible that Natsu returned his attraction? Was he just saying these things because he was delirious? That was a high possibility, but Gray refused to let himself rule out the slight chance that maybe Natsu was attracted to him in the same way he was attracted to the fire slayer.   
If that chance was there, Gray would do whatever he had to in order to prove he was right for Natsu. That thought was the last he had as he allowed himself to drift off to sleep, his arms tightly wrapped around the very man that was currently plaguing his thoughts. 

Happy sighed as he tried to get comfortable on Wendy’s bed next to Carla. The small blue exceed missed his friend and wished that he could have at least seen Natsu before Gray and Lucy whisked him off home so he could get better. Happy enjoyed going on jobs with Wendy and Carla, especially if he got to spend time with the white exceed but he missed his best friend when they were separated from each other.   
His job with the three girls only took a couple of days but by the time they had returned to the guildhall Natsu, Lucy, and Gray had already left for their own job. Happy had been hoping that he would have gotten back in time to go on their job as well, if only so he could spend time with his longest friend after days of being away from him.   
It had been Natsu’s idea for Happy to go on the job with the girls so he could get closer to Carla, and Happy had gone without much argument because he knew that the dragon slayer was just trying to help the blue exceed as much as he could. Happy had been by Natsu’s side during every adventure he went on in order to find Igneel and all of the misadventures the dragon slayer found himself in along the way, including meeting Lucy and the many times they had to go and rescue her from whoever had kidnapped her. If anything, the exceed wanted the dragon slayer by his side while he tried to get Carla to like him just as he had been by Natsu’s side for so long.   
Never in his, relatively short, life had Happy ever seen Natsu come down with any sort of illness. That was what really made the exceed worry. Happy had no idea what kind of illness Natsu could have for him to need to stay with Carla and Wendy rather than with his friend. Wendy claimed it was nothing serious, that it was connected to his dragon slayer magic and he needed to work through it with as few distractions as possible, but Happy didn’t understand why he would be considered a distraction.   
Of course, spending the night meant that he could be close to Carla for just that much longer so Happy didn’t really argue too much but the explanation the youngest dragon slayer gave him on why he couldn’t go home didn’t make much sense to Happy. 

Natsu opened his eyes to look up at Gray’s stormy blue ones. The last thing he remembered clearly was...being on Mt. Hakobe getting the herb. Did they succeed or had he ruined the job? When he opened his mouth to ask...nothing came out.  
No...that wasn’t right. He remembered more than being on Mt. Hakobe. He remembered Gray taking care of him while he was sick. Was he still sick? He must have been for the fact that he couldn’t wake up...or even remember where he was. Why was Gray there?  
“Why are you fighting this Natsu?” Gray’s question took him by surprise and Natsu had to pause to think about what he was talking about. What was Natsu fighting?  
“Can’t you just accept what’s happening...or have you not figured it out yet?” Obviously, Natsu hadn’t figured it out yet or else he wouldn’t be fighting...whatever this was. Before he had a chance to ask Gray what he was supposed to be accepting, the ice wizard disappeared, and with him his answers. 

Natsu woke up tangled in Gray’s embrace. He didn’t understand the dream, if that’s what it was, but the fact that Gray was there keeping his body at a comfortable temperature brought a smile to his lips. The fire mage didn’t think he was fighting anything, and at the moment his head was beginning to hurt trying to figure it out. Maybe he would be able to think it through later, but for now, he just wanted to sleep more and enjoy being so close to Gray without them being at each other’s throats. 

The next morning Lucy woke up to a quiet house. Part of her had fully expected Natsu to return to his usual obnoxious self when the new day started but at the same time, it would be too easy of a fix. It was still early and Natsu wouldn’t get up yet even if he was feeling better. However, the fact that Gray wasn’t up yet was surprising.   
Quietly she made her way to Natsu’s bedroom and cracked the door open to check up on her two friends. The sight of Natsu and Gray cuddling on the bed was the last thing she expected to see, but it was one she was happy to see. The two would do each other well if they would stop trying to fight each other all the time. Gray needed someone to pull him out of his comfort zone every once in a while, and Natsu needed someone to ground him as only Gray could. With a soft smile, Lucy closed the door as softly as she could and moved on to the kitchen to start some coffee and breakfast for everyone. From what Levy told her, she and Gajeel would drop by later that afternoon to talk to Natsu if he had woken up.  
The smell of food and coffee brought Gray out of the bedroom first about half an hour later. With a bright smile, Lucy served him a plate and some coffee wordlessly. She made no mention of what she saw earlier, as she was sure he wouldn’t have wanted her to see it.   
Just when she was wondering if Natsu was going to wake up, the pink haired mage walked in with an exhausted look on his face and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.   
“We can turn up the heat if you’d like Natsu.” Lucy offered when she noticed the blanket, setting a plate of food and a glass of juice in front of him as he sat down. Natsu shook his head in reply but mumbled his thanks as he took the juice and began sipping on it.   
Lucy and Gray tried to be subtle in watching Natsu while he ate, eating slowly to ensure that they didn’t miss if something happened that would need their attention. Natsu, for his part, seemed to be more out of it than usual as he didn’t even notice them watching him. What would have normally taken him mere minutes took nearly half an hour for Natsu to finish. Lucy immediately offered to clean up while the men got more rest, as both looked like they hadn’t slept at all.   
Instead of returning to the bedroom like Gray expected him to, Natsu moved to the couch and curled up on it. Gray moved to sit on the floor next to him, so he could have a better view of him in case something were to happen to him.

The two men slept on and off for most of the morning until Gray couldn’t nap anymore. When he decided to get up for good, Lucy called out that she was going out to get them more food as she anticipated them staying there for a few more days to take care of Natsu’s newfound illness. Only minutes after Lucy’s departure did Natsu wake up.   
The fire mage was in the shower when there was a knock on the door. Gray doubted it was Lucy already back with groceries, so he was only mildly surprised to see Gajeel and Levy at the door. Stepping aside to let them in, he couldn’t help but wonder what the two of them were doing there. Sure, it was Gajeel who had told them to take Natsu home and stay with him but he didn’t expect the elder dragon slayer to come to visit.   
“Where’s flame breath and bunny?” Gajeel’s rough voice was low and quiet, as his eyes darted around in search of the two in question.   
“Lucy went out to get more food for us and Natsu is in the shower. He should be done soon.” Gray replied with a shrug and moved to lead them into the living room. The next fifteen minutes were filled with awkward conversation as the three tried to figure out what they could talk about without breaching the subject of why the two were actually there in the first place. Gray highly doubted Gajeel would tell just him alone and Levy seemed to only be there for moral support.   
Finally, when Natsu emerged from his room, hair dripping water still and in fresh clothes, Levy pulled Gray to a different part of the house to talk about some new research she was doing. It was obvious to Gray that she was serving as a distraction, and damn it he wanted to know what the two dragon slayers were talking about but he could appreciate Levy’s determination to keep him away. 

 

“What’re you doing here metalhead?” There was no bite to Natsu’s words as Gajeel expected but he kept his surprise to himself.   
“I’m here to tell you what yer dealing with. I assume Igneel didn’t get around to teachin’ you about the effects of yer magic?” By the look on the fire dragon’s face, it was obvious what the answer was. “Dragons took mates, actually they took one mate for their lives. Yer at that point in yer life where you found yer mate and need to claim them.”  
“What makes you say something as idiotic as that?” Natsu refused to believe that was what he was feeling. This was a cold. Nothing more. Except Natsu never got colds.  
“Yer magic isn’t working. It’s presenting itself as a common illness without the actual illness being there. Wendy would have noticed it if it was.” Gajeel was not looking forward to the day he would have to explain taking a mate to innocent little Wendy. “The longer you wait to even acknowledge yer mate the longer yer magic won’t work.”   
“It’s a load of bullshit. I’m not attracted to anyone.” He certainly wasn’t attracted to Gray. He couldn’t be.   
“You are and it’s either Bunny or the stripper. You don’t have to tell me which, but I know it’s one of them since that’s when this hit you. Just know this affects more than just you Natsu. And you’ll be happier when you accept your mate.” With that Gajeel stood up and called for Levy. As soon as she was by his side the two left with a quick goodbye. Gray found Natsu sitting on the couch glaring at the floor in thought. Instead of mocking him, he decided to leave him be for the moment until he could figure out a way to bring the topic up. 

Natsu struggled to keep himself from thinking about what Gajeel had said. Was that what he was fighting? His mate? But Gray being his potential mate? No. He refused to accept that. In a way, Natsu was fighting that and he didn’t think he would stop fighting it. Even if Gray’s scent did make his heart skip a beat sometimes. 

Later on, when Lucy returned she could immediately tell that something was off with Natsu. One look at Gray she could tell that he didn’t know what was wrong either. With a soft sigh, the celestial mage toted the groceries into the kitchen and began working on an early dinner for the three of them. With the fact that Natsu was able to stay awake for so long, even if he was still complaining about being cold more often than not, Lucy hoped he was getting better rather than not. 

Their evening ended in much the same way as the previous, with Lucy spending much of the night watching over Natsu while Gray spent the night with the fire mage. Once again he ended up holding him in his bed to keep him warm, at least that was what Gray told himself as he fell asleep. Lucy didn’t bother to check on them in the morning, almost certain they would be in a similar position as she had found them the morning prior before she began making them breakfast. 

Almost as soon as the breakfast dishes were cleared and Gray was getting ready to clean them up, a loud and frantic knock sounded from Natsu’s front door. Lucy was the one to answer it, almost surprised and slightly annoyed to see Erza at the door. She had been told not to interrupt them, and as much as Erza hated taking orders from Gajeel she wouldn’t affect Natsu’s recovery by going against him would she?  
“Erza?” Natsu’s voice sounded weaker than it usually did as he called out from behind Lucy. The blonde cringed slightly when she noticed the dull look in Erza’s eyes and her tight-lipped grin as the Requip mage greeted her friend in return. Resisting a sigh, Lucy moved to let Erza in. Whatever her reason for being there it had to have been important. Gray, having heard Erza’s name, made his way from the kitchen to see what their friend and teammate was doing there.   
“I’m sorry to bother you like this but we’ve been requested on a job and Master won’t tell us what it is until all of us are at the guild.” Erza got straight to the point, barely looking at any of the three of them.   
As much as the redhead had put up a fight about leaving Natsu’s care to Gray and Lucy, she did trust them and she did love all three of them. Erza had been worried about all three for the last two days, so much that she had taken a small job just to keep herself from spying on them. When she had returned that morning, she had been informed by Master Makarov that a job request from Crocus had come in for her team. Immediately she set out for Natsu’s how to gather the three of them, partially happy that she would get to check up on them.   
“But if you’re not feeling up to a job Natsu, we can ask them to give it to another team. I’m sure Sting and Rogue would be happy to take on the job.” The words were meant to put him at ease rather than rile him up but Natsu only grinned and punched his fist into his hand.   
“Of course I’m up to it! I’m all fired up!” The typical fire that accompanied his words was missing, and it didn’t go unnoticed by his teammates, but the fire mage didn’t give them time to comment on it before he rushed to his room and changed clothes.   
“He’s been sleeping on and off for two days. I doubt he wants to stay cooped up in here for much longer.” Lucy knew how much Natsu enjoyed traveling and going out on adventures; staying in one place must have been grating on his nerves to an extent.  
As soon as Natsu was back and Gray and Lucy had gathered their own belongings, the four departed and made the quick walk to the guild. Despite Erza’s attempts at conversation, the walk was mostly silent as Natsu seemed to simply enjoy the fresh air and focus on the new job ahead of them rather than the illness he was dealing with. After the third attempt, she stopped entirely. 

When the four made it to the guild, they were met by Wendy, Carla, and Happy. Gajeel and Levy were there as well, but since they weren’t part of this job they weren’t allowed into the Master’s office. As soon as everyone was seated, Makarov let out a small sigh and turned to his children.   
“The king has personally requested your services for this job. Though he has not provided any details what he did tell me was that this will be very dangerous and he wants you to meet him in Crocus at Mercurius as soon as possible. I will only allow you to go if all of you are well and can take on such a responsibility.” Makarov loved his children more than anything, and while turning down such a request from the king of Fiore would hurt the guild’s reputation he knew better than to send them out when they weren’t able to complete the job.   
“When have we ever not taken a job request because of a little cold gramps?” Natsu’s words brought a smile to everyone’s lips - even if they knew this was no ordinary cold or sickness. Gajeel had confided in Makarov about what Natsu was facing and had expressed his opinion on letting the dragon slayer take any jobs until everything was sorted out, but the sixth master was well aware of how strong the fire slayer was.   
“Exactly as Natsu stated. We will not let the guild or the kingdom down!” Erza added on with an air of determination swirling around her. Next to her, Wendy nodded her head enthusiastically. Gray and Lucy remained quiet but the Master could see their own determination hardening in their eyes. He smiled as he knew he had nothing to worry about with his children.   
“Then go home and pack your bags. You leave in an hour.” Makarov would put his faith in his children, as he should know to do already. This was the strongest team in Fairy Tail. There was nothing they couldn’t do. 

Gajeel followed the group out of the guild hall after they had left the Master’s office. As soon as they had all split up to go their separate ways, Gajeel pulled Natsu aside.   
“Are you sure you want to go on such a stupid job without the use of yer magic?” As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Gajeel did care about Natsu and his health. They were kindred spirits in a way, connected by their childhood raised and abandoned by their dragon parents and through their dragon slayer magic. Besides, if Natsu let himself get killed now, who was Gajeel supposed to fight all the time?  
“I told you, it’s a cold. I’m not attracted to anyone. I have to go pack…” Natsu hadn’t even thought about the fact that they were going to have to get on the train to make it to Crocus faster. Maybe he would be lucky enough to fall asleep on the ride over and not have to deal with his stomach trying to jump out of his stomach. 

Natsu hadn’t been aware that Happy had been following him home, no doubt to stock up on fish and whatever else he brought along on jobs until the blue cat spoke up.   
“Hey Natsu,” Happy called out as he landed on his friend’s hair. “What was Gajeel talking about?”  
“Nothing important Happy. Something stupid he’s got in his head that my magic isn’t working right.” Natsu refused to admit that a part of him knew Gajeel was right. His magic wasn’t working. He could barely call up his flames unless he tried really hard. It was like being a child all over again. However, to think that it was because he was attracted to Gray or Lucy, that he needed to claim one of them as a mate, was just insane. “This is just a silly cold.”   
“But you never get colds…” Happy commented as he nestled into Natsu’s hair further.   
“There’s a first time for everything.” His only reply was accompanied by a shrug. 

As soon as Natsu arrived home he noticed just how much Gray and Lucy had taken care of him and his home. They hadn’t just cooked and cared for him; they cleaned his house and restocked his fridge. That had been mostly Lucy, but he appreciated it nonetheless. When he stepped into his room, he could still smell Gray’s smell of ice and cinnamon lingering on his bed. It brought a smile to his lips. Maybe having this crush on Gray wouldn’t be so bad.  
Shaking that thought from his head, Natsu began packing for his trip to Crocus. Surprisingly, either Gray or Lucy had unpacked from their last job for him as well though neither had cleaned his room for him. He didn’t mind that. This was where he kept his most personal belongings and the idea of either of them seeing those was not something he was ready for yet.   
Deciding he had enough to last him however long this job was for, Natsu took one last look around his room, and one last whiff of the mix of his and Gray’s scents mixing together, before turning away and walking out of the room. After he made sure everything in the house was in decent order, he locked up and began walking to the train station to meet up with the rest of his team.   
When he arrived he saw Gray and Lucy sitting on one of the benches waiting. So far it seemed they were the first to get there, but that didn’t bother Natsu. He was perfectly fine getting to spend this extra time with his best friend and his potential crush. In fact, he almost found himself upset when he saw Wendy and Carla walk up ten minutes after him. He knew that his jealousy and annoyance at the younger dragon slayer’s appearance was unfounded so he swallowed it down. When Erza walked up nearly twenty minutes later, lugging her cart full of her belongings behind her, with the tickets for the train ride to Crocus in hand.  
“Is everyone ready?”


	3. Chapter 3

The group boarded the train into two separate compartments; Gray and Natsu were in one while Erza, Wendy and Lucy were in another with the two exceeds. Almost as soon as the train started moving, Natsu forced himself to fall asleep so he wouldn’t have to deal with his stomach trying to jump out of his body for the half day train ride. Gray did his best to keep Natsu comfortable for the duration of the ride, but there was only so much he could do in the confined space. The benches were far too short for Natsu to lay comfortably and from his position on the bench across from him, Gray could only react so fast if he were to fall off. Thankfully, trains moved rather slowly so there was less of a chance for Natsu to fall off of his temporary bed.  
The sight brought a light smile to the ice mage’s lips. Natsu had to curl his legs into an almost crescent fetal position to be able to fit on the bench, and he was using his arm as a pillow. Though it was obvious that Natsu wasn’t feeling any better than he had been that morning, Gray wasn’t upset about being left alone with the fire slayer. Without the girls hovering over him, he could admire the different expressions Natsu made while he slept - something he never could do when there were other people around them. Like the one, he was making currently was peaceful except for that slight grimace of pain, which Gray attributed to his motion sickness. 

Lucy was holding Happy in her lap as she sat across from Wendy and Erza. Carla was sitting between the two women but close enough that if she wanted to she could crawl into Wendy’s lap at any moment. For much of the first hour, the compartment was silent. None of the women wanted to be the one to break the silence or rather, they didn’t know how to breach the subject on their minds.  
“Lucy?” It was Happy who was the first to talk as he tilted his head to look up at his blonde friend. A responsive hum indicated she was listening and he continued. “Is Natsu okay?”  
Happy had done his best to keep his worries about Natsu to himself over the last two days but it was difficult. No one would tell him anything concerning his best friend and that only fueled his worry. He had known Natsu his entire life; the dragon slayer was his best friend. The small exceed didn’t like the idea that anything was wrong with him at all and to not have any information about his condition for the entire two days was hard on him.  
Lucy smiled and gave Happy a small pat on his head in reassurance. The celestial mage had no doubt that this had been especially hard for the blue cat since he wasn’t even allowed to see Natsu before that meeting with the Master. She didn’t even know if he knew what was going on or if he was told anything about Natsu’s condition when she and Gray brought him back from Mt. Hakobe.  
“He’ll be just fine. Natsu is too stubborn to let a cold bring him down.” She gave Happy her the most reassuring smile could manage and hugged him a little tighter to her chest. In her peripheral, Lucy could tell that Wendy wanted to comment but a subtle shake of Erza’s head kept her from saying anything. Of course, Lucy and Erza were both well aware that whatever Natsu was suffering from was definitely not a cold. The symptoms may be there but it just didn’t seem right for someone who rarely got sick to catch such a common illness.  
Satisfied, Happy snuggled up against Lucy’s chest and allowed himself to fall asleep for the remainder of the train ride. Carla wasn’t far behind him, no matter how hard she tried to keep herself awake. As soon as both cats were asleep, Erza sat up straighter and turned her attention on Lucy.  
“How is he really?” Erza didn’t hide her suspicious expression as she watched the blonde carefully.  
“He’s been acting strangely. If I didn’t know any better I would think this was just a cold because he acts like he has one, but I’ve never seen Natsu get sick like this. He’s always either too hot or too cold and he slept almost that entire two days straight.” Lucy paused as she debated on bringing up her observation of the way Natsu acted around Gray while keeping her face as neutral as she could. Thoughts of how her two friends would react to such news filled her head and Lucy decided it was best that they didn’t find that out just yet. Especially since she wasn’t quite sure where their relationship stood at the moment, and in all honesty, she doubted they did either.  
“Is that all?” Erza didn’t believe that was all Lucy had to tell them and was staring at the celestial mage through narrowed eyes.  
“That’s all I can tell you at this moment in time Erza. I don’t know what’s wrong with him but if he says he’s okay then all we can do is trust in him, right?” The blonde refused to doubt her friend’s judgment in his own limitations. Sure, Natsu overdid things often but he always came out well enough.  
Wendy listened to the two older women talk, wondering if she should intervene in their conversation with the information she had learned from Gajeel the prior afternoon. The youngest dragon slayer was well aware this was no ordinary illness and was far from a common cold. Having Gajeel explain what Natsu was going through put everything into perspective for Wendy, and as much as she hated not being able to help she definitely wished she could explain it to Erza and Lucy. However, doing so could pressure Natsu in a way that could do much more harm than good. Especially if Erza was concerned.  
Still, the idea that Natsu’s magic wasn’t working properly worried Wendy. She would have to try harder to protect the mage that had become an older brother to her. If Natsu couldn’t use his fire, then Wendy would use her own magic to keep him out of danger. 

Gray never pegged Natsu for a sleep talker but the more time he spent with him alone like this the more he realized how wrong he was. Natsu had mumbled about how hot the compartment was, so Gray immediately cooled it down for them and received a thankful mumble in return. For a while Gray was worried that Natsu’s fever had returned, only to realize when he had checked the dragon slayer’s forehead that his body was at a normal temperature. Just to be certain, however, the ice mage remained close to Natsu in case his fever did flare up. They were already close to Crocus so the ride would be ending soon.  
An hour later, the train came to a halt in Crocus train station and Gray took to the task of waking Natsu up. For how easy it was for Natsu to fall asleep, it wasn’t that difficult for Gray to wake him. Just a couple of shakes and a strong dose of his magic and Natsu bolted up.  
“We’re here flame brain.” Gray sighed as he gathered their belongings. Natsu mumbled something under his breath as he grabbed his pack and followed Gray out of the compartment and off the train to meet the rest of their team on the station platform.  
“Natsu!” Happy cried when he saw his friend and flew out of Lucy’s arms to hug the fire mage. The pink haired man grinned and returned the hug briefly before turning to Erza.  
“So how far is it to Mercurius?” Leave it to Natsu to forget his way around a city he spent an entire week in only a few months ago.  
“Only about ten minutes from here. We should check in at the inn before meeting with the King. It would be rude of us to drag so much stuff around with us when we talk to him.” Everyone resisted the urge to comment about how she was the only one carrying around too much luggage and decided it was best not to argue as they followed her towards one of the inns near the castle. Lucy checked them in, having to get two rooms in order to accommodate the group, and they dropped their stuff off before leaving for Mercurius. 

The castle was just as grandiose as Lucy remembered and as they walked through the gardens towards the entrance, she wished she had taken the time to tour them during the Grand Magic Games. Now was, unfortunately, not the time to be worrying about how beautiful the gardens looked as the sun began to set on them. It was a shame though, as the soft sun was hitting the flowers in such a way that Lucy would have loved to be able to spend some time in the gardens without the worry of responsibilities looming over her. Maybe when this job was over she could take some time to spend in Crocus and do more sightseeing than she had the last time they were there.  
One of the palace guards led them through the palace to the throne room where Hisui and Toma sat awaiting their arrival. The usually smiling and joking king, though pleased to see the winners of the Grand Magic Games, wore a serious expression that was reserved for the direst of circumstances. This immediately put the entire team on edge, even Natsu who wasn’t known for behaving seriously at the best of times, as they waited to hear what their job entailed.  
For a moment of tense silence, the small group of mages stared at the king in expectation before the tiny man nodded at his knights who left the room and closed the large doors behind them. Then, he let out a sigh that seemed to let the stress of the situation crumble onto his shoulders. That was when Erza noticed how tired Toma seemed, how stressed he was. Hisui was no better. The situation must have been much worse than either wanted to lead on if it was affecting them this way.  
“Thank you for coming so quickly.” Toma’s voice was missing its usual bounce. That fact didn’t go unnoticed by the group but everyone remained quiet and allowed the king to continue speaking. “I am asking for your help in tracking down a dangerous dark guild that has reared its head around Crocus recently. Many of our mages have disappeared and come back without their magic and heavily injured. Some haven’t come back at all. Sabertooth has been working on tracking them down but they have had a large number of mages wounded because of this guild. Our hope is that you will be able to take the information Sabertooth was able to gather and stop this guild from harming anyone else.”  
While the mission wasn’t quite what any of them expected none of them were willing to turn it down. Erza collected the information offered to them by one of the guards and with a determined nod accepted the job. “I swear on Fairy Tail we will do as you ask.”  
After being dismissed from their meeting, the five mages and two exceeds made their way back to the inn. Gray and Wendy left shortly afterward to get them all food for their long night ahead. Erza was determined to see this job through and insisted they leave in the morning. As a result, Lucy had immediately begun combing through the research provided to them by Sabertooth’s mages for any hints to the guild’s location. She had been at it for an hour before any solid information came up. The more Lucy read, the more worried she became. 

This job would have been better suited for more S-class mages than just Erza but the urgency of the situation didn’t allow for them to call in for reinforcements. Inferno Eclipse, the dark guild they had been tasked with stopping, was incredibly powerful and Lucy couldn’t tell how they had stayed under the radar for so long before making itself known. They could really use Laxus and Mirajane on this job, and if she was being completely honest with herself Lucy didn’t know if she could be of any real help other than deciphering the information given to them the fastest.  
Lucy sighed softly as she took a break from reading the notes that were no doubt written by Rufus. He was the only one whose handwriting remained neat while writing so many notes. However, reading so many notes at once was tedious and Lucy still hadn’t eaten since their small meal on the train ride.  
The sun had already set by the time the blonde mage grabbed her food and as she looked around Lucy realized Gray and Natsu had already retired to their room, along with Happy who refused to spend another night away from his best friend when he was still worried about Natsu’s health. Erza was still awake and reading through some of the notes Lucy had already gone through while Carla and Wendy were in bed already. With the danger of Inferno Eclipse being as high as it was and with little idea of how long it would take them to actually get to where Sabertooth believed their base was, Erza planned on leaving first thing in the morning. Lucy, however, planned on getting through as much of the notes as she could before she needed to sleep. The more information they had on the dark mages the better their chances, so after she finished eating she immediately put her wind reader glasses back on and prepared herself for a long night of research. 

Erza knew that she was pushing things by insisting they leave to search for Inferno Eclipse the next morning. Lucy needed more time to go through Sabertooth’s notes on the dark guild and give them any information she found so they could execute the capture and arrest of the dark mages effectively. However, there was a part of Erza that wanted this job over quickly so that not only could she put the king’s mind at ease but so she could catch Jellal and Meredy before they went off on their next lead in search of Zeref.  
Master Makarov was the only one who had known she was planning on leaving with the two remaining members of Crime Sorciere before this request had come in and though she hadn’t shown how disappointed she was, Erza was deeply upset by the turn of events. Was it too much to ask for a little bit of time with her oldest friend?  
With a soft sigh, Erza turned away from where she had been watching Lucy reading and tried to get some sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a long day. 

Almost immediately after they entered their room Natsu fell asleep on his bed, with Happy curled up right next to him. Gray sat on his own bed and watched the pair for a moment with curiosity. This was the calmest he had ever seen Natsu act in all the years they had known each other. That thought alone was slightly unsettling. Was there really something wrong with Natsu? All Gray could do was keep watch over him and hope he could help him if there was truly something wrong.  
Natsu’s thoughts were consumed by Gray, even while he slept. The fire mage wasn’t sure how long he was asleep in the inn that night before the ice mage visited his dreams. At first, it was just them fighting over something stupid like normal, the way that all of their fights started. Then just as Natsu had gone to throw a punch at the stripper something changed in Gray’s expression. His eyes became softer and his lips parted as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t decide if that was a good idea or not. It stopped Natsu in his tracks.  
“Why can’t you accept it?” Natsu didn’t even see Gray’s mouth move but that was definitely his voice.  
“Gray?” Natsu’s own voice was more like a squeak than anything and it made the fire mage wince.  
“Are you ashamed? Of what we could be…? Of me?” Gray caught Natsu’s wrist in his hand and took a step forward. The dragon slayer couldn’t read his friend’s expression but if he was being honest with himself he didn’t think he wanted to. Natsu couldn’t answer Gray’s questions. No. He didn’t want to. He knew the answers but he was scared. Scared of what the guild would think of him. Scared of what Gray would think if he were to accept that this was really happening. Why couldn’t it have been Lucy? Why couldn’t his inner dragon have chosen Lucy to fall for and chosen as his mate? Why did it have to be Gray? Why did it have to be his best friend?

When Natsu woke up he was pleased to see that Gray was asleep on his bed and that Happy was still curled up next to his pillow. Careful not to wake the little cat, Natsu climbed out of the bed and tiptoed over to Gray’s bed. He sat on the floor next to the bed and stared at the man he was now fully convinced he was attracted to. He couldn’t deny it any longer. His dragon had chosen Gray as his mate and Gajeel was right; until he told Gray and either got accepted or rejected his magic wouldn’t work properly.


	4. Chapter 4

Lucy had fallen asleep sometime in the middle of the night while doing her research. Erza waited until she had gotten everyone else up before waking the sleeping blonde. After eating a quick breakfast and packing, the group checked out and headed on their way to the next town over. The entire time Sabertooth had been tracking Inferno Eclipse they hadn’t been able to pinpoint an exact location for where they think the guild’s base could be but it was somewhere between Crocus and the neighboring town of Millfall. For that reason, the group was at a disadvantage.  
By midday, they had gotten into the heart of the woods that separated the two towns and still, there were no signs of the dark guild. Lucy continued her research every time they took a break but still had little more to go on than they had the previous night.  
“The mages of this guild are incredibly careful not to leave anything behind them after their attacks. Even their victims can’t remember anything about them.” Lucy commented on their most recent break. They were about an hour’s walk from the edge of town now but had decided to stop for lunch.  
“So how do we find people like that?” Wendy asked as she peered over at some of the notes Lucy was looking over. Lucy wished she could answer that question but with Erza’s eagerness to get on the road and find the guild the celestial mage hadn’t had a chance to finish going over Sabertooth’s notes nor did she have the chance to even suggest talking to the guild yet about their experiences personally. She sighed softly.  
“I don’t know. I need more time to finish these notes.” It was a slight jab at Erza but the red-headed mage didn’t seem to understand.  
“We don’t have time. We need to find them and take them out quickly.” Apparently, Erza expected this to happen miraculously. Gray shook his head as he realized what kind of situation the Requip mage put them in. Just as he was about to ask how much time she needed to finish going over the notes, a ball of fire flew at them seemingly out of nowhere. Natsu jumped up and ate the fireball before it could do any damage to his teammates. The fire burned going down, more than it usually did, and suddenly Natsu felt like his entire body was on fire.  
“What was that fire…” He mumbled as his vision blurred and he stumbled back into Gray. The ice mage caught his friend quickly, worry lacing his expression as he immediately laid the dragon slayer to the ground. Lucy was quick to pack up all of the notes she had out to keep them safe while Erza drew her swords to protect them against the potential onslaught.  
Wendy was quick to rush over began looking him over for any signs of what had happened. She was curious if their enemy had the ability to somehow lace their fire with poison, but then that would mean they knew about Natsu being a dragon slayer. Pulsing her magic through his body, she found no poison but what she did find was that his body temperature was way too high. It was as if he was running a dangerously high fever that was spread across his entire body. Unfortunately for Wendy, she knew exactly what was going on. Natsu was going into a dragon rut.  
“We have to get out of here, fast.” Her voice was dangerously low and calm, indicating to the others how serious their situation was.  
“Wendy, Lucy, take Natsu and get out of here. Gray and I can handle this.” Erza commanded as she requipped into her Heaven’s Wheel Armor. Gray’s shirt came off as he moved to stand next to her and provide an escape route for the two girls. Happy picked up Natsu and followed after Lucy as she grabbed Wendy and ran, with Carla flying right behind them. 

The tall, fair-skinned woman stepped out of the tree line that had been shielding her since her arrival to the small clearing. Initially, when Kasumi had stumbled upon the mages in the forest she was merely interested in their magic until she recognized their guild marks. Then when she overheard them talking about looking for her own guild she knew she had to put a stop to them before they could find her master. Master Ren definitely wouldn’t be pleased to learn about Fairy Tail being after them, but he’d be even less pleased if he found out Kasumi let any of them live so she had to kill them all in that forest. As the two younger women ran off with the two cats carrying the male mage that had eaten her flames, she smirked. A five again one battle reduced to two against one put the odds in her favor.  
It seemed the Requip mage would give Kasumi a bit of a challenge as she sent attack after attack at the fire mage. The other mage who stayed behind seemed to be an ice mage who was quite good at stripped his clothes off and back up the Requip mage’s attacks with his ice-make magic. Separately, Kasumi was certain that she could handle them with no problem; together, however, they made a formidable foe for her. She would have to do a tactful retreat in order to think of a better plan. Maybe Aldik would know how to handle these pesky mages. Slowly she began backing away before she threw two more attacks to keep them occupied while she made her escape. 

“Is she retreating?” Gray asked softly as he noticed the dark mage slowly backing away from them. He held his ice-make stance just in case he needed to create an attack quickly but continued to follow Erza’s lead. Erza watched the woman for a moment longer before realizing what she was doing.  
“That’s exactly what she’s doing.” Of course, just because she saw the attack coming didn’t mean Erza had time to warn Gray to dodge it or dodge it herself. The short time she had to take her eyes off the woman allowed the dark mage to get away from them, and the ice mage next to her let out a grunt of dissatisfaction.  
“Should we go after her?” Erza shook her head.  
“No, we need to go find the others and make sure Natsu’s okay.” They would be able to find the dark guild again, but right now the first priority on either of their minds needed to be Natsu’s health. As soon as they were certain they weren’t being followed by the dark fire mage, Erza and Gray began searching for Lucy, Wendy, and Natsu. 

Happy carried Natsu as far as his wings would take him. Lucy wasn’t even sure how far they had gone when they stopped but she could no longer hear the sounds of battle behind her, only the huffs of her and Wendy’s heavy breaths. They were so deep in the forest now that she wasn’t even sure Erza and Gray would be able to find them, but at the moment her first worry was Natsu’s well being. After Happy had put Natsu down it was obvious to both girls that he was suffering. Lucy hated seeing him in pain like this.  
“The best way for me to describe this is a really terrible fever that he can only ride out. There is nothing I can do but keep it from getting any higher.” Wendy explained after she took a moment to look the elder dragon slayer over. The sky mage was doubtful that Natsu wanted anyone to know what he was going through, and without knowing who it was his dragon had chosen as Natsu’s mate letting any of them know could be considered reckless. Natsu needed to figure this out on his own.  
Wendy did the best she could to calm the fever down while the group waited for Gray and Erza to find them. The time seemed to drag on for hours, and without being able to see the sun so easily through the trees Wendy wasn’t sure how much time had passed before Gray and Erza did find them.  
“How is he?” Erza asked the moment she laid eyes on them. Wendy repeated the same thing she told Lucy. Her tone left no room for argument as she held her ground on the matter. Natsu would have to fight this himself and all they could do was support him.  
In the end, the group decided the best thing to do was stay there until Natsu’s fever went away. In the meantime, Lucy wanted to take the chance and finish her research so they would be better prepared for their next encounter with Inferno Eclipse. Erza took time to train in between watching over Natsu and their makeshift camp while Wendy and Gray had dedicated themselves to making sure Natsu was as comfortable as they could make him. Happy, unable to hide his worry, refused to leave his friend’s side and Carla wanted to monitor Wendy’s magic usage. All of the wizards had a feeling that it would take at least a day or so before Natsu recovered. 

“You’re certain they will follow?” Ren Erers was a more patient man than his brother but still less patient than his younger brother. Ryuu had decided it was best to recall most of their numbers before the Fairy Tail mages came to their front door, leaving behind only those they either knew would be expected to get caught. Ren himself wanted to take the power of the Fairy Tail mages and leave them to die, but Ryuu had claimed it wouldn’t work if the Rune Knights were on their trail and according to Mina and her wind magic they were.  
“I’m sure given time they will find us. It’s not like we’re hiding out here Master.” Kasumi replied as she looked over at the remaining mages Ryuu and Mina had left with her and the master. Aldik was still there but he kept to the shadows, in case the light guild mages happened across them sooner than expected. “Once their fire mage is better I have no doubt they will follow after me.”  
“Good. Aldik I want you to make sure they don’t come out of this in one piece.” If Ren was going to be arrested he wasn’t going to allow a light guild to get away without suffering. Aldik would make them suffer because he lived to serve Ren and Ryuu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was late on posting a chapter this past week since I was working a lot so I'll give you guys two tonight! Enjoy!


	5. Chapter 5

It took Erza a day and a half to get tired of waiting. As soon as Lucy had finished going over Sabertooth’s notes and compiling her own, she had been able to give them a better idea of where Inferno Eclipse’s base was located as well as what kind of mages they were up against. With that information in hand, Erza decided they couldn’t afford to wait any longer for Natsu to get better.  
“Since Lucy knows the most about this guild I want to take her with me. You guys stay here and continue to take care of Natsu.” Though Lucy wanted to stay with Natsu as well, she knew that they had been sent on this job for good reason and the longer they dragged it out the worse things would be for the surrounding towns. So she followed after Erza with the promise to Gray, Wendy, and the two exceeds that they would return victoriously. 

Once the two women were out of sight, Wendy left to gather herbs with Carla and Happy to try and bring Natsu’s fever down. It seemed to Gray that Natsu had a sixth sense for when the two of them were alone since as soon as Wendy and the two exceeds were gone Natsu’s eyes fluttered open.  
“Natsu!” Gray’s cry was full of worry and relief at seeing his friend conscious again. It wasn’t until he looked closer at the pink haired mage that Gray noticed something was off about him. The look in his eyes was different than any the ice mage had ever seen before, and before he could decipher it, Natsu had him pinned to the ground with his body. “Natsu?”  
Hearing his name fall from Gray’s lips almost made Natsu moan in want. He could smell the musk and snow from Gray so much better than ever before with how close he was. Ignoring the ice mage’s protests, Natsu darted his tongue out to trace the artery bulging from his neck. The taste of his skin brought a purr to his lips; feeling Natsu’s tongue on his skin sent a shiver down Gray’s spine. Before Gray could decide if it was a good shiver or a bad one, he felt the distinct sharpness of teeth scrape against his skin and reacted before Natsu could bite him. Reaching up he immediately used the same spell he had been using to help Natsu’s fever for the last few days. The sudden cold seemed to jerk Natsu out of whatever state of mind he was in and throw him back into a state of unconsciousness. Gray almost wanted to sigh in relief.  
Except, there was a small part of him that was upset he had stopped the fire dragon from continuing. He had enjoyed the feeling of Natsu’s body pressed against his, the feeling of his tongue against his skin. Gray almost craved the feel the bite Natsu had no doubt been about to give him. It hadn’t been a shiver of fear that ran through him earlier; it was a shiver of excitement. And now Gray wanted more. He wanted to taste Natsu the way the dragon slayer had tasted him. He wanted to finish what the fire mage started. Those thoughts scared him. Especially as he heard Wendy, Carla, and Happy return.  
The moment Wendy returned, she began working on crushing the herbs into medicine for Natsu. Gray pretended as if nothing happened while the younger mage worked. Neither cat noticed his discomfort thankfully as he tried his best to get his thoughts back under control. There would be time to think about what had happened earlier after they finished this job and Natsu was better.  
“This medicine should help reduce the fever, if not break it completely.” Wendy commented as she poured some into Natsu’s mouth.  
An hour later Natsu opened his eyes again. This time, Gray saw nothing strange in his expression, save for the mild confusion that he was sure Natsu felt. He watched as Wendy fed Natsu some more of the medicine to keep his fever from flaring up again. Happy had found a river the day before and went to get fish for them all along with Carla. Now that Natsu was awake, they needed to allow him to regain his strength so they could regroup with Lucy and Erza quicker.  
Upon noticing the absence of the two female mages, Natsu brought up their current job. Gray explained what happened to him and how Erza and Lucy decided to continue the job on their own earlier that day when the celestial mage had finished her research.  
When the two exceeds returned with plenty of fish, Gray fried all but Happy’s for them and they ate with haste. Wendy, Gray, and Natsu had come up with a plan to help Erza and Lucy when they caught up to the two, but only once Natsu had regained his strength. 

Lucy and Erza took longer to find the location of where Inferno Eclipse was based at than they had hoped. The building had probably been abandoned years ago if how run down it appeared to be was anything to go off of. Lucy hypothesized that their actual base of operations was located underneath the ruins, judging on how much room they would need in order to hold so many mages at once. Unfortunately for them, there was only one way in since it was Virgo’s day off.  
Before Lucy could offer up a plan, Erza rushed inside. With a sigh, Lucy followed after immediately. Just as she expected the ruins were empty. The entrance to the underground passage wasn’t even hidden and as the two walked closer, Lucy could hear movement downstairs.  
Erza looked to Lucy before beginning the trek down the stairway. Behind her, Lucy had pulled out her whip as well as Leo’s gate key. She wanted to be ready for anything at a moments’ notice. Erza could Requip faster than any other mage, so she knew there would be no worry there.  
The sight that met the two Fairy Tail mages was shocking. Through the dim lights of the underground room, Lucy could see almost a hundred mages prepared to fight them. Two stood on a ledge overlooking the rest, and if the way Erza’s shoulders tensed before she requipped into her Heaven’s Wheel armor one of them was the one who had attacked them earlier. Before she could ask, the two mages were under attack. Quickly she called out Leo and begun defending herself.  
“Is this all Fairy Tail can do? Bring us two weak mages?” The man laughed as he watched the two mages fight off the army. Erza gritted her teeth as her swords went flying in every direction against her enemies. From the corner of her eye, she could see Lucy and Loke fighting off maybe fifteen attackers. At the rate they were going, the two wouldn’t make it back.  
“ **Ice-Make: Ice Geyser!** ” Gray’s voice was a relief to the two mages as was seeing him, Natsu, Wendy, Happy, and Carla enter the underground room.  
“ **Fire Dragon’s Iron Fist!** ” The intense heat of Natsu’s fire burned any doubt in Lucy’s mind that he may have still been sick. Already with the two of them there the number of their enemies had been reduced to half. That alone gave the blonde hope as she called out to her most loyal spirit and the two continued to fight the mages around them. Erza, who had only stopped for a brief moment, almost wanted to laugh at the display but knew she needed to finish this fight.  
Natsu went after the fire mage who had attacked them earlier while Gray went after the mage who had taunted Erza and Lucy earlier. No matter how many flames Kasumi threw at him, Natsu wouldn’t go down; he ate each one up and threw a stronger attack at her until she stopped getting up.  
The earth mage who had been by Kasumi’s side only fared slightly better against Gray. Each of his attacks was frozen before they could do any sort of damage and his battle was over the moment Kasumi went down. Ren had been certain they would be able to overpower one small team of light guild mages, even if they were from Fairy Tail. This meant it was time to go with Aldik’s plan. Hopefully, he was done with the enchantments before the rune knights arrived. 

As soon as their guild master, Ren, had fallen to Natsu and Gray the rest of the mages stopped fighting. In the shadows, a tall man blended in as he watched the events unfold. Throughout the fight, he had watched for any instances of discord or mistrust he could use to his advantage. Eventually, they all knew that Fairy Tail would become a pain in their sides, just like Sabertooth had been. For the rest of their plans to succeed, Fairy Tail needed to be busy with their own problems to take on another job dealing with a dark guild. It was with that in mind that Aldik planted his enchantment in the redhead mage’s mind, to sow the seed of discord between her and her blonde partner. When he went to do the same between the ice-make mage and the fire mage there was something that stopped him; something that he couldn’t decipher but was strong enough to resist his magic. He frowned at the revelation but knew there wasn’t enough time to dwell on it. As the room began flooding with rune knights, Aldik took one last glance at the man he swore his allegiance too and the feisty fire mage he had come to appreciate as an ally. Master Ren and Kasumi wouldn’t be in jail for long. Aldik knew that Ryunosuke wouldn’t allow that to happen. With a shake of his head, he burrowed himself deeper into the shadows and took the only escape route they had left open to avoid his own capture. If he was caught their entire plan would be ruined. 

Lucy couldn’t help but breathe in the fresh night air as the group left the underground room. They agreed to leave the arrest of the Inferno Eclipse mages to the rune knights and wanted to get a head start back to Crocus. It was late enough that even if they didn’t stop to take a break, they wouldn’t be able to see the king until the morning but the thought of sleeping in a bed rather than on the ground was what motivated them all to keep walking.  
It was nearly midnight when they did return, and thankfully the inn they had stayed at earlier in the week was still open for them to rent rooms for the night. None of them spoke as they went their respective ways to collapse into bed. 

Ryuu watched from a distance, through the eyes of one of his illusions, as the Rune Knights took his brother and one of his most faithful mages into custody. If he hadn’t seen Aldik slink away through the shadows before the Rune Knights had stormed the building he would have believed that even his manipulation mage had been caught as well, given how chaotic the scene before him was. His mages had been beaten horribly, including Ren and Kasumi, and the ruins were collapsing in on the underground chamber that Ren had created as their temporary base. Was his brother hoping for his mages to be killed rather than be set through an interrogation?  
“Sir?” Mina interrupted his thoughts as she approached him, followed closely by Aldik. Behind them stood the hundreds of mages they had evacuated two days prior when Kasumi had informed them of Fairy Tail’s involvement in their affairs.  
“My brother has been arrested, as was the plan. Until we can get into ERA and break him and Kasumi out, I am acting as Guildmaster.” The words were almost a joke to him. Ryuu was always the guild master, he just used his brother as a puppet to keep the others from questioning his authority. “Move everyone to the main base as soon as you can. We will plan the rescue of my brother and Kasumi there and continue plans for phase one as well.”  
To think that a small light guild like Fairy Tail had stopped them before they could complete phase one was almost amusing to Ryuu. He supposed, though, that the king of Fiore would have called in the strongest light guild in the country to combat them when he realized he was being targeted. Too bad for the kingdom and crown, the light guilds weren’t going to be enough to stop him from taking over the kingdom and shutting Fiore down. The crown would be his. Even if he has to crush every light mage in the country to get it.  
With one last look at the scene below, Ryuu smirked. These mages knew nothing of what was coming their way. Fairy Tail would be the first to fall, and if any other guild tried to help them and the crown they would fall right along with them. Ryuu would see to it. But first, he needed to get his brother back. Turning away, the illusion mage began following the rest of his guild back towards the edge of Crocus. 

Pale green eyes followed the tall dark haired mage watching the scene in the valley below them with hesitation. Over the nearly ten years she and her sister Vemazhe had been with the dark guild, Aky had grown to hate Ryuu and Ren even more than she had when Aldik had first convinced them to join. They had been children then, just nine and seven years old when the manipulation mage had convinced them that this guild sought to bring out the best in people and create a better future. Aky was certain a better future didn’t involve hurting and killing innocent people for their magic just because a couple of kids wanted more power.  
As soon as the ice mage found a way, she was going to get her and Vemazhe out of this hell they called a guild. Maybe they could find a light guild to join, or they could find a small town far away from Crocus and just settle down like Vem had dreamt about after they had first joined. The thought brought a smile to the white-haired mage’s lips. Aky would do anything for Vemazhe, even kill in her stead, and if getting her as far away from Inferno Eclipse meant she had to be the bad guy she would do so in a heartbeat.  
“Sister?” Vemazhe’s fairy-like voice brought Aky out of her thoughts and the tall woman turned her attention from the man she was temporarily calling her guildmaster to look at her sweet little sister. “They’re going to leave without us…”  
Yeah...one day Aky would get them away from this hell and they would be able to live their lives.


	6. Chapter 6

In the morning, the five mages returned to Mercurius and reported the events of their job to the king. After a round of tearful thank-yous from the king and princess, the group grabbed breakfast from a nearby cafe and returned to the inn. There, the girls packed up their belongings but Wendy insisted on Natsu staying for another few days to make sure his fever was gone before returning. Gray had offered to stay, claiming that he was already used to handling Natsu’s fevers and could take care of him should one spike again. In reality, he was more curious about potentially being able to talk about what had happened in the forest. Or at least think about it without the prying eyes of his teammates.   
That afternoon the girls and two exceeds left for Magnolia, leaving Natsu and Gray by themselves in the small inn room. Gray left shortly after to get them food, since he knew how large Natsu’s appetite could be. That left Natsu alone in the room he was currently sharing with Gray.   
The fire dragon didn’t remember much from the almost two days he was unconscious in the forest but somehow he knew that something had happened between him and Gray. The ice mage seemed almost uncomfortable around him; almost as if he wanted to ask him something but didn’t have the courage. It drove him insane with curiosity and frustration. Ever since he had come to the realization that what he felt for his teammate was more than a slight crush, he felt the overwhelming desire to kiss Gray. No, that wasn’t right. He wanted more than just to kiss him. He wanted to be able to taste him, to be able to lay his claim onto him. Natsu could feel his dragon’s need for Gray’s scent to be surrounding him and before he knew it, he had grabbed the jacket Gray had left behind off his bed. It smelled heavily of snow and mint; just like Gray himself did. Natsu felt his dragon purr as he pulled the jacket close to his chest and cuddled around it to embrace himself in the scent. Happy to be surrounded by the scent of his chosen mate, Natsu found himself falling into a peaceful sleep. 

When Gray returned, carrying as much food as he possibly could, he was almost surprised to see Natsu asleep. Actually, no that part wasn’t surprising given how out of control his magic had been recently. The surprising part was seeing the fire mage cuddled around his jacket so tightly. Placing the food on the small table, Gray took what he wanted and ate quietly, deciding it was best to allow Natsu the extra sleep while he could still get it. Doing so also allowed Gray the time he needed to think over what happened in the forest.   
Surely that had been a mistake on Natsu’s part. There was no way he could have meant to...do that to Gray, right? Gray couldn’t even put his finger on what Natsu had been attempting to do to him; to an extent, it was like Natsu was trying to seduce Gray but that was just so unlike Natsu. In all the time Gray had known the fire mage, Natsu had never shown any interest in anyone romantically. Maybe with his magic being off, Natsu thought that Gray was Lucy. The two had spent a great deal of time together so it wouldn’t be surprising if Natsu had developed a crush on her. Lucy was practically a sister to Gray, so if Natsu really did have romantic feelings for her then the ice mage could be happy for her even if it felt like his heart was breaking.   
Gray decided after an hour of waiting for Natsu to wake up that he needed a shower. As he was letting the water drown his doubts, he tried to forget about what happened in the forest. The more he tried to forget the more his body reacted, and soon he found himself stroking his hardened member to the memory of Natsu’s body pressed against his. He let out a groan of both frustration and need as he rubbed himself to completion. 

Natsu woke up to the sound of water running. He saw the food on the table and knew that Gray must have come back and seen him with his jacket. A part of him wanted to blush but he couldn’t find it in himself to be ashamed. Not with how relaxed it had made him. Faintly over the water, Natsu could hear Gray moan, and the sound turned him on. He tried his hardest to resist the way it made him feel; the last thing he wanted was for Gray to walk in on him while he was masturbating to thoughts of the ice mage. Instead, he decided to not let the food go to waste and began to pick at it.   
When Gray got out of the shower, finally feeling relaxed and only mildly guilty about what he had done only minutes prior, he noticed that Natsu was awake and eating the food Gray had left for him. He smiled lightly at the sight before moving towards his bed to sit down. Once it seemed like Natsu was finished eating, Gray decided to check up on him.   
“Natsu?”Gray waited until he had the fire mage’s undivided attention. “What’s going on with you? It’s not like you to catch fevers like this.”  
“I’m fine, really Gray.” Natsu wasn’t sure he was ready to tell Gray about what was going on with him. Not yet. He didn’t even know if the ice mage would return his feelings or how he would take the news. Gray shook his head with an annoyed sigh.   
“Don’t give me that. You’re not okay otherwise you wouldn’t have passed out after eating that fire. I've been with you through a lot of fights Natsu. I know how tough you can be, and I also know when you’re lying about being alright. Tell me what’s wrong so I can help you fix it.”   
Natsu was silent for a moment as he let what Gray said set in. Obviously Gray would be able to see right through his words of being fine. They were best friends and had been for years. Regardless of all the fights they had, they were always there for each other. Slowly, Natsu nodded.   
“It’s a dragon thing. I don’t even know how to describe it that well. Gajeel told me it had to do with my inner dragon demanding me to mate...and I refused to accept it at first. That’s what first threw my magic out of control. Refusing to acknowledge who my dragon chose as my mate limited my connection to my dragon slayer magic, and since that’s the only magic I know I was unable to use it. Gajeel didn’t want me to go on this job for that reason.”  
“Why wouldn’t you acknowledge your mate?” Gray asked as if the entire thing didn’t bother him. The ice mage was confused, highly confused really, but he knew that Natsu needed to get this out before he asked any of the technical questions. Even then, Natsu may not even be the person to ask about how things like dragon mates worked. It seemed to Gray that he was getting all of his information from Gajeel. Maybe that was where Gray would have to go in order to get more information to help Natsu through this.   
“Because I was afraid if I did I would lose my closest friend.” Gray almost felt like crying. Though he didn’t want to admit it, his feelings for Natsu had been growing stronger in the last few days to the point where he was almost certain it was a form of love. But he knew that he wasn’t Natsu’s closest friend. It had to be Lucy he was talking about. Before Gray could voice his opinion, Natsu continued. “When I finally came to terms with what was happening to me, I was reconnected to my magic but it wasn’t strong enough. I guess eating that mage’s flame threw my body into a dragon’s rut. Wendy called it a fever because that’s the closest thing to describe it without calling it what it really is.”  
Wendy must have talked with Gajeel before the job because her medicine had definitely helped keep Natsu from going into a full-blown rut and taking his mate in front of everyone. For that Natsu would have to thank her the next time he saw her.   
“You know, Lucy is lucky to have a guy like you after her, Natsu.” Gray said softly, almost too quietly for Natsu to hear him, before standing and leaving the room completely. He needed to get out of there to clear his mind before he said something he would regret. As much as he told himself that he would help Natsu through his and be supportive of his feelings for Lucy, it still hurt. The fresh air may help keep him grounded if nothing else.   
Natsu was shocked as he watched Gray leave the room. How in the world had Gray come to the conclusion that he was in love with Lucy? Didn’t he know that out of everyone in the guild it was Gray he considered his closest friend beside Happy? Apparently not. And he had just spilled his heart out to a man who showed no interest in him. He sighed and clenched his fist against the table. Why couldn’t this have happened to anyone but him?

 

Erza was in a foul mood the entire train ride home. At first, Wendy and Lucy tried to calm her down and reassure her that Natsu would be okay in Gray’s care, assuming that was the reason she was so upset. It wasn’t until they were on the last leg of the trip that Erza finally mentioned how useless Lucy had been on the job.   
“You couldn’t even take out fifteen mages on your own. If Gray and Natsu hadn’t stepped in we wouldn’t have finished the job. How can you call yourself a mage of Fairy Tail?” Erza’s words were harsh and brought tears to Lucy’s eyes but she refused to cry. Thankfully Wendy had fallen asleep along with Happy. Carla had heard the entire thing, being the one to sit next to Lucy for that portion of the ride, and merely sat one of her paws on Lucy’s thigh when Erza stood to get a drink and a slice of cake from another cart when she decided she didn’t want to look at Lucy anymore.   
“Did I do something to upset her Carla? I know I’m not as strong as the boys but...she’s never acted like this before…” The cat said nothing, having no idea what she could say to comfort the blonde who had acted as an elder sister to both she and Wendy. She agreed with the celestial mage though, something wasn’t right with the way Erza had been acting. However, until they returned to the guild hall there was nothing they could do about it.


	7. Chapter 7

Lucy had thought long and hard about her decision before finally making it. The celestial mage knew that if she asked the rest of her teammates, they would tell her that they enjoyed having her on their team and that she wasn’t a burden but she needed to prove it. Lucy needed to prove it to herself and to Erza. If the Requip mage truly felt that the blonde was a hindrance to the team, to the team she had been practically dragged into, then the celestial mage would prove that she could handle herself on even the more difficult missions.   
When they returned to the guild hall and informed Master Makarov of the events that had transpired, Lucy hung back afterward. There was a part of her that still doubted herself and her abilities. Maybe that was why Erza’s words had hurt so much.  
“Lucy, my dear, what’s wrong?” Makarov was not one to turn his children away when they were struggling with something, and he could tell from the look in her eyes that she was battling something in her own mind. Whatever was wrong, he wanted to be able to help her the best way he could, even if that meant all he did was listen to her.   
Lucy took a moment to recollect herself and gather the courage to recount what had happened on the train ride back. Makarov didn’t interrupt her until she finished, and even then he didn’t know what to say. Erza had mentioned she was planning on taking another job, and with the information Lucy had just given him Makarov could see why she would want to.   
“What do you want to do, child?” Makarov was empathetic to his children’s needs and wishes and given how Lucy was currently feeling he had no doubt that she already had a plan of what she wanted to do in mind.   
“I need to prove that I am worthy of being here, Master. I know you all will say I belong here but...I need to prove to myself that I am as strong as I think I am. And I want to prove to Erza that she’s wrong about me. But I’m afraid if I pick a job for myself I’ll choose one that’s either too easy or out of my level.” Makarov thought for a moment before smiling at the celestial mage.   
“We just got a request in that may be perfect. It’s a B-class so it’s around where I’d expect you to be if you were a solo mage. Talk to Mira about it and tell her I want you to take it. Leave whenever you’re ready.”   
“Thank you, Master. I know I’m asking a lot but...when Gray and Natsu get back, if I’m not back can you keep them from coming after me?” Makarov simply nodded with a silly smile on his lips before he shooed the blonde out of his office. He had a punishment to think of for when the Requip mage returned from her mission. 

Two days later, Natsu’s fever hadn’t returned so both men decided it was safe for them to return to Fairy Tail. Gray hadn’t brought up Natsu’s rut again and Natsu wasn’t sure how to go about making the ice mage understand who he had chosen as his mate. Both decided they needed to talk to Gajeel, and they couldn’t do that until they were back home. Even though he knew that it would upset his stomach, Natsu consented to taking the train home rather than walking. It would cut their travel time to a day rather than two and a half. 

The entire ride was quiet as Gray watched over Natsu sleeping, which seemed to be the only way to keep him from trying to vomit the contents of his stomach. When they had arrived at the station the ice mage woke up his friend and helped him off the train. From there, the two made their way back to the guild hall quietly.   
Fairy Tail’s guild hall was exactly the way Natsu expected it to be with the exception of two of his teammates. Erza and Lucy were nowhere to be seen. Natsu found Wendy, Carla, and Happy sitting at their normal table and immediately walked over to them. Gray decided it was best to check in Mira before making his way over to the table as well. At the bar, he asked the silver-haired barmaid where the two missing members of their team were at. Mira pulled out two job flyers and flashed them to the ice mage. One was an S-class while the other was a B-class. Gray took it from Mira and read it over quickly.   
“Lucy took this?” He was concerned, not because he didn’t think that she could handle herself but because she hadn’t been back for long before leaving again. He could see the concern in Mira’s expression as well when she nodded.   
“An hour after they returned Erza took the S-class job and Lucy took that one. She seemed upset when they returned and Wendy doesn’t know why.” Gray thanked Mira for the information and asked if he could borrow the flyers for a moment to talk to Natsu and Wendy. When she agreed he left the bar and headed to their table.   
“Lucy took a B-class job on her own.” He stated when he arrived and slammed the flyers down. “And Erza took an S-class too. Immediately after they got back. Did something happen between them?”  
“Not as far as I know…” Wendy replied immediately, feeling bad that she didn’t know what was wrong with her friends. When she had asked Lucy if she wanted company the blonde had told her that she was more than capable of handling the job on their own. “Lucy was adamant on taking the job by herself. I offered to go with but she refused.”   
“We should go after her.” Natsu decided with a determined nod. He quickly read over the job request before deciding that Lucy definitely needed their help. She should have been back by now. “I’m going to tell Gramps we’re going after her.” 

Natsu didn’t even knock on Master Makarov’s door, instead, he burst in claiming they needed to talk. The old man groaned but allowed the fire mage to continue rather than chastise him for his lack of manners. After listening to the dragon slayer’s concerns regarding the celestial mage, the guild master gave a heavy sigh.   
“I understand your worries but I must decline your request. Lucy has asked that no one interfere in her job and while I do not agree with her reasoning I admire her determination. At the moment she feels as though she isn’t pulling her weight in your team and wishes to prove herself to not only you guys but herself.” When it seemed Natsu was about to interject, Makarov held up his hand to stop him. “I know that you and your team do not feel this way about Lucy but this is something she must do so let her do it. When she returns home remind her how much you all care about her and value her as your friend and teammate.”   
With those words, Makarov kicked Natsu out of his office and told him to go home and relax. Instead, after he informed the rest of his team of what the master had told him, he decided his best course of action was to find Gajeel and see if he could get some more of his questions answered. Specifically, how he was supposed to win his chosen mate over. 

Finding Gajeel had proven to be harder than expected. Levy and the rest of Team Shadow Gear were on a job and it seemed that Gajeel didn’t want to stick around the guild hall while she was gone. Natsu knew of few places that the iron dragon went to train. He decided he would try those places first before searching elsewhere.   
The first three places her tried were empty of the iron dragon and it wasn’t until Natsu had made it to the fourth place on his list that he realized how far out of the way all of these sites were. The sun had already gone down and it was highly likely that Gajeel had gone home already. Of course, the dragon slayer in question was full of surprised and nearly knocked the fire mage down as Natsu ran into him.   
“What’re you doin’ here fire breath?” Gajeel was only slightly surprised to see Natsu in front of him, the surprise stemming from how he found him in the first place. He was sure that when the fire dragon realized he needed help with his dragon rut he would come to the iron dragon. It was only a matter of time.   
“I need to talk to you,” Natsu stated simply as he stared up at the taller dragon slayer. Gajeel didn’t even have to ask him what it was about as he motioned for the fire dragon to follow him as he left the clearing. For a minute or two, they were silent before Natsu gathered his courage.   
“You never asked who it was my dragon chose…” Gajeel didn’t really care who Natsu was supposed to mate with but knowing would make everything easier for him to help in the long run. “It’s Gray...but he thinks I’m in love with Lucy…I don’t know how to handle this. Gray’s my best friend, if he rejects me it’ll ruin our friendship forever.”   
“You just have to tell him the truth. The entire truth. Don’t leave anything out, including your feelings for him and your fears about this. Your dragon chose him for a reason Natsu. When I realized Levy was my mate I was terrified of telling her. I literally nailed her to a tree and hurt her and her team. If she can forgive someone like me for that and accept me as her mate then I know Gray can accept you as his, but you have to tell him otherwise he’ll continue to believe you’re into Bunny.” Gajeel felt strange giving relationship advice to the other dragon slayer, but he knew that at the moment he was the only one who was knowledgeable about how dragons mated. “The sooner you tell him, the better.” 

It was late when Levy and her team returned to the guild hall from their job. She insisted that Droy and Jet go home while she checked in with Mira before the guild hall closed for the night. As she expected, barely anyone was there when she entered. She greeted the cheerful barmaid and informed her of the successful job before turning her attention to the few patrons left in the hall. Seeing Wakaba and Macao still there wasn’t surprising, along with some of the older members of the guild, but she was surprised to see Gray still there. With one last smile towards Mira, Levy made her way over to the table Gra was sitting at and took a seat across from him.   
“You’re here awfully late Gray. Something on your mind?” Gray looked hesitant to talk to Levy at first since she was one of Lucy’s best friends, but it wasn’t like this was something he could talk to just anyone about.   
“Care to take a walk?” His feelings for the resident fire dragon was definitely not a subject he wanted the guild to hear about. Levy followed Gray out of the hall and for a while, the two just walked in silence before Gray sighed and stopped walking.   
“Hey Levy...you and Gajeel...you’re mates aren’t you?” Knowing what he knew about dragon mates, which still wasn’t as much as he had wanted, it seemed obvious to him that the two were mates.  
“We are. Gajeel surprised me when he told me about the dragon mates but I can’t say I was disappointed.” Levy wondered if that was all that was on Gray’s mind or if there was more to it.   
“I’m pretty sure Lucy is Natsu’s mate...but...having taken care of him so much in the last week I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen for him. I don’t want to get in their way because I love them both, but it hurts.”   
It took Levy a full minute to realize that Gray was actually crying before she pulled him into an awkward hug. Awkward only because of the height difference between them. She allowed him to cry on her shoulder and comforted him until he calmed down.   
“I don’t think she’s his mate. Lucy adores Natsu but not the way a mate loves their other half. What you’re feeling, the fact that you are openly displaying your love for him to someone you barely talk to about such things, tells me you’re most likely his mate. You and Natsu need to talk about this though. He may not fully realize how you feel and if so he may be holding back for your sake. If you want him to be happy, tell him how you feel and let him figure it out on his own.” Natsu was so dense sometimes that Levy wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t know who he was attracted to so strongly to be considered a mate. “Now, let’s get you home. It’s late and I know you’ve had a long day too.”


	8. Chapter 8

Lucy had nearly completed her job request when she had been ambushed. Having called Loke and Virgo to her aid, she was able to keep herself from becoming overwhelmed as she tried to figure out where exactly the attacks were coming from.  
“ **Baryon Formation!** ” Bickslow’s voice was a surprise to Lucy as she noticed his dolls following his command and attacking something just to the right of her.  
“ **Lightning Dragon’s Roar!** ” The familiar roar hit to the left of her and flushed out a couple of mages who had barely escaped Laxus’s attack. Lucy gasped and almost dropped her whip when she saw their guild marks. Thankfully Loke was able to keep his head on his shoulders and attacked them before they could get too far to escape. The entire thing was over rather quickly thanks to the help Lucy received from Laxus and the Raijinshū.  
“What’re you doing out here all alone cosplayer?” Bickslow asked as he and the rest of his team approached her. Freed had already contacted the rune knights to pick up the dark mages. Lucy sighed, knowing they hadn’t been at the guildhall when Lucy had taken this job and prepared herself for the round of questioning she was about to receive.  
She still had a job to finish on top of their questions, too. It was going to be a long night.

 

Natsu had spent the entire night trying to figure out the best way to talk to Gray about being his mate. No matter how much he thought about it, the idea still scared him. There was still the chance that Gray could turn him down and reject him. Regardless of how much it frightened him, he knew that Gajeel was right. He needed to tell Gray. By the time he fell asleep, he had set his mind on telling the ice mage the next day.  
That was easier said than done, however. As soon as Natsu entered the guild hall he found Juvia all over Gray like she normally was. It made him want to growl in anger, but he swallowed it down and moved to the bar to order a drink instead. Eventually, he would get Gray alone and they could talk then. Except, Juvia seemed to cling to Gray all day. Even when Gray was trying to avoid her the water mage popped up. Finally, Gajeel seemed to catch on to how hard of a time Natsu was having as he asked Juvia to help him with something for Levy and it was the perfect time for Natsu to follow Gray out of the guild hall alone. The fire dragon didn’t even care if anyone noticed that he had followed the ice mage out; his inner dragon was calling for their mate so loud it was starting to become painful.  
“Gray!” Natsu didn’t give the ice mage time to argue as he pulled him towards the edge of town, towards his own house instead of Gray’s. “We need to talk.”  
That was all he said until they were out of town and away from anyone who could have wanted to watch them. When Natsu was satisfied that no one had followed them, especially not Juvia, he let Gray’s hand go and stopped walking. Turning to look at the slightly taller mage, his heart skipped a beat and his brain stammered in nerves. Natsu hadn’t actually thought this far ahead. What was he supposed to tell Gray?  
“What is it Natsu?” Gray was mildly annoyed at being dragged so far out of town when all he wanted to do was go home. He had spent his entire day fending off Juvia’s advances while trying to keep his mind off of his feelings for the fire mage standing in front of him.  
“I…” Natsu couldn’t think about what to say. Instead, as if his dragon had taken over, he leaned up and pressed his lips against Gray’s in a hesitant kiss. He wanted more, wanted to devour Gray’s mouth and taste every inch of his body, but he needed to give him the opportunity to reject him first.  
It was Gray who deepened the kiss, pulling Natsu into him and sliding his tongue across the fire mage’s lower lip in a request for access to his mouth. This was exactly what Gray had wanted for the last week or so, possibly even longer without him truly knowing it. He craved the dragon slayer’s attention and even if Levy had been wrong, even if Lucy was his mate, right now Gray was going to be selfish and take what he could get from Natsu before he told him the truth.  
Natsu parted his lips slightly for the ice mage, just enough for Gary to slip his tongue in and caress the dragon slayer’s. The feeling brought out a hearty moan from Natsu and he wrapped his arms around Gray’s waist to keep him close. This was definitely not talking, but maybe he was still getting part of his message through to the ice mage. He wanted Gray and only Gray. After a moment more of kissing, Natsu pulled back and smiled triumphantly at Gray, as if he had just won a long battle. Maybe in a way he had.  
“What about Lucy…?” Gray was still confused. He definitely felt the passion in that kiss, but he needed to be completely sure that he was the one Natsu had chosen. Natsu gave a snort and rested his head on Gray’s shoulder.  
“I love Luce like a sister, but I want you in ways I couldn’t even imagine doing to her. My dragon chose you...probably before Luce even came to Fairy Tail honestly but I never realized just how much I wanted to be around you until my rut hit me.” Until his magic left him and Gray had taken care of him, Natsu had ignored the signs of Gray being anything but a friend and a rival. “I always thought of you as just a friend, a very close friend, until I realized how your smell made me feel different than everyone else’s. The thought of you with anyone else pissed me off, and I found myself jealous of having to share you with even our teammates and nakama. If Gajeel hadn’t put it into perspective for me I probably wouldn’t have even realized I was attracted to you.”  
Gray was silent for a moment before he grabbed Natsu’s hand and began pulling him closer to the fire mage’s house. He needed to sit for the rest of this conversation and, honestly, he felt too exposed out in the forest. 

Juvia swore she had only been gone for a moment, just long enough to get her beloved Gray a refill on his drink before the ice mage had disappeared. Almost an entire week spent without her darling and Natsu was trying to take him away from her once more already. Every time she tried to convince Gray to leave the guild hall, to go for a walk or out on a date, the ice mage refused, so the two were stuck surrounded by their guildmates which meant the fire mage who seemed to be desperate to get her Gray’s attention.  
Had Natsu succeeded when Juvia’s back was turned? Surely if Gray didn’t want to go anywhere with Juvia, he wouldn’t have just walked off with Natsu...unless it was about Lucy. When the two had returned the previous day they seemed focused on the fact that Juvia’s love rival had taken a solo mission and still wasn’t back yet. Were the two fighting over the blonde’s affection?  
Juvia needed to know, and so she went in search of her beloved and his teammate. Only, she couldn’t find them. Wherever Natsu had taken Gray, he did it fast. The two were gone before Juvia could even track them. 

Laxus had offered to help Lucy finish her job, which she quickly refused claiming she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. All she had left to do was return the items the bandits she defeated earlier had taken from her client to said client and then she would get her rewarded. The level of sass the dragon slayer received surprised him and he refused to let her leave until she explained what happened. Lucy sighed but agreed but only after she completed her job. Laxus agreed so long as Freed or Bickslow went with her. It was a mutual disagreement that led to Bickslow going with Lucy to return her client’s belongings and collect her reward while Laxus, Freed, and Evergreen set up a camp for them. She supposed it was better than spending money on an inn if they knew they weren’t going to be there for more than a night. If Lucy was being honest with herself, it felt nice to be able to look up at the stars for comfort as her nerves and anger jolted around in her abdomen.  
When the two returned nearly an hour later, Evergreen and Freed were out getting food for them. Lucy sighed and took a seat across the fire from Laxus. For a moment, the celestial mage was quiet as she tried to figure out where to start. Bickslow and Laxus didn’t push her, which she was definitely thankful for. Either they realized it was a difficult topic or they didn’t know how to approach the subject either.  
“At the end of our last job, I had an argument with Erza…” Lucy finally stated, quietly as if she didn’t want the two men to hear her. She didn’t give them time to ask her to speak up or repeat herself as she launched into the story of what happened on their last job and the train ride afterward. “Apparently she doesn’t believe I’ve been pulling my weight on our jobs or in the guild. I’m sure that she doesn’t really believe that, or else she would have said something sooner, but it made me realize that she was right. I rely on my team for much more than I should and if I don’t rely on them I’m relying on my spirits.”  
Laxus was silent as he took in everything that Lucy had just stated. How on earth could the blonde think she was weak? She kept up with Natsu, Erza, and Gray on a regular basis. Lucy had proven that she had immense strength to everyone at the guild when she participated in the Grand Magic Games just a few months prior, as well as her role in closing the Eclipse Gate. Laxus had no idea what Erza was thinking when she told Lucy that she wasn’t pulling her weight, but she was obviously not seeing the same person the rest of the guild saw.  
“You know we all believe in your abilities, right Cosplayer? I mean, you hold ten of the twelve zodiac keys and from what I understand that’s pretty rare. And you were wicked during the Games.” Bickslow commented draping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her into a half hug. Around the two his totems repeated him as they always did but it brought a smile to the blonde’s face instead of annoying her like Laxus had been sure it would.  
“I’m glad you think so…” Her smile faded slightly but she remained close to the seith mage rather than pull away from his hug. “I just had to prove to myself that I am worthy of being a Fairy Tail mage. You guys are all so strong and my strength only comes from my contracts with my spirits.”  
“But if it wasn’t for how much you care about your spirits you wouldn’t have such strong bonds with them, or with the rest of your friends. Your soul is pure in a way I haven’t seen before, Cosplayer.” Bickslow wished he could show Lucy what he saw when he looked at her soul, so she could see how brightly she shined. Right now her soul was a dull yellow rather than the shimmering gold he was used to seeing. “You don’t need to be as physically strong as Natsu or Erza, nor do you need to have offensive magic as strong as Gray. You have a strength that they could never have and that’s with your ability to connect people with your heart and soul.”  
“You were the first to forgive me for trying to take over the guild all those years ago Blondie. If you hadn’t done so, I probably would still be facing backlash from guild members.” Laxus knew that if it hadn’t been for Lucy accepting him back as soon as they came back from Tenrou he wouldn’t have been able to pick up where he had left off before his exile. She convinced the rest of the guild that people could change. She had done the same with Juvia and Gajeel. According to Bickslow, Lucy tended to extend her heart to anyone who she felt needed it, even if they didn’t want her help.  
Lucy smiled at the two guys, thankful that she had someone other than Natsu and Wendy who believed in her. While she thought that Gray believed in her abilities she couldn’t be sure. She thought that Erza did until she had said those horrible things to her. Lucy hadn’t even mentioned what Erza said after they had arrived back at the guild, what had driven the celestial mage to take a job on her own. She looked down at her guild mark with a smile. Yes, Lucy definitely belonged in Fairy Tail. It was her home and always would be.  
Laxus wondered if there was something Lucy had left out as she stared at the back of her hand but before he could ask her what it was Freed and Evergreen returned. As the two were cooking dinner, Lucy gave them a very shortened version of what she had told Bickslow and Laxus, leaving it simply at she and Erza had a fight over her abilities as a mage. It wasn’t until they were almost done eating that Freed brought up the question that had been on Laxus’s mind the entire evening.  
“What could Erza have possibly said that drove you to a solo job?” Lucy was silent for a moment as she stared up at the starry sky.  
“That I was too weak to belong in Fairy Tail. That the only reason I was still with the guild was because of Natsu.” Lucy didn’t want to admit that for a while she had believed the same thing. Natsu had been the one to bring her to Fairy Tail, and he had tricked her into being his partner. She wouldn’t have made it so far without him, but that didn’t mean she was weak and she refused to let anyone tell her otherwise. “I have to admit I was surprised to have you guys help me with those dark mages. I asked Master not to send anyone to look after me so I could prove to myself I could do jobs by myself...not that I’m not thankful for your help of course.”  
“Gramps didn’t send us. We were on our way to our own job request.” Laxus replied with a shrug. “If you aren’t ready to return to the guild hall you’re welcome to come with us. We could definitely use your help with this job.”  
Evergreen, Freed, and Bickslow immediately agreed and when Lucy tried to argue about the pay she was shot down. Apparently, S-class jobs paid a lot of Jewel and even if they split it evenly five ways she would have more than enough to cover her rent for a couple of months. Lucy couldn’t pass up the chance to help out on an S-class job and agreed when she found no more complaints in the arrangement. Laxus contacted his grandfather to inform the man about the arrangement so that he wouldn’t worry about the celestial mage more than the lightning dragon was sure he already was.  
For the rest of the night Laxus and Freed filled Lucy in on their job and began formulating a plan. Once they had one that both Freed and Lucy were satisfied with, the group went to sleep, with Evergreen and Lucy sharing a tent while the other three shared the other. 

Laxus couldn’t sleep that night. Even as Bickslow slept next to him peacefully and Freed watched over the camp during his shift of night watch, Laxus found himself too restless. He knew that the seith mage had claimed the blonde celestial as a sister after she forgave him for their attack on Fairy Tail, and Freed and Evergreen always spoke highly of Lucy’s personality, but Laxus himself didn’t know how he felt about her. Of course, he was attracted to her when he first saw her. She was a beautiful mage who had joined his guild but she was always with the fire dragon slayer so he had always assumed she was claimed by him as a mate. The fact that now, given how long she had been away from Natsu, Laxus couldn’t even smell the fire dragon on her like he should if they had been mates, the lightning dragon hoped that maybe he had a chance to figure out where his feelings truly lay with the celestial mage. Not to mention, he had hated seeing her cry and had wanted to turn around, return to the guild hall to await Erza’s return so he could challenge the Requip mage for hurting someone she was supposed to call a friend. Instead, he would offer Lucy the time she needed away from the redhead and spend as much time with her as he could to figure out his own feelings for her.  
He had realized that night as he listened to her talk and watch her interact with his friends that she had more depth to her than he had thought. She was smarter than he thought, on par with Freed, and had a sense of humor that went alongside with Bickslow’s. She could keep up with Evergreen’s girl talk like it was everyday casual conversation and had even kept up with his own sass when he tossed it at her. And when she looked up at the sky, she was able to tell them each of the constellations they could see and the stories behind them. He saw a calm serenity in her eyes that he couldn’t help but want to bring out in her as often as possible.


	9. Chapter 9

A part of Erza knew that something was wrong. She was quicker to anger than normal and had a looser grip on her thoughts than normal. It hadn’t been until she had taken her job the week before that she realized the horrible things she said to someone who considered her a friend. Lucy was her friend and she had not only insulted her abilities but told her she didn’t deserve to be in their guild all because she couldn’t fight as many mages as Erza could? It was pitiful, on the Requip mage’s part. The redhead decided that as soon as she returned to the guildhall she was going to apologize and hope that Lucy forgave her for her terrible words.  
If the celestial mage couldn’t forgive her, then Erza would understand. How could she even ask that of Lucy, when she had told her blonde friend that she didn’t even belong in the guild that was supposed to accept anyone and everyone? If anyone didn’t belong, it was Erza for betraying her nakama in such a harsh and despicable way. She would have to find a better way to apologize, would go to the end of Earthland to make it up to Lucy for the way she had treated her.   
What Erza wasn’t expecting was for the celestial mage to not be there. Apparently, she had taken a job immediately after Erza and had yet to return. That certainly worried Erza and as soon as she heard that from Natsu the redhead mage went to visit the master to organize a rescue mission. Natsu and Gray, still worried about their friend, followed after her.   
“There is no need. Lucy has already completed her job and is currently traveling with Laxus and his team while they complete their job.” Makarov couldn’t have been happier when Laxus informed him late the previous night that Lucy was joining them for their job. Not only was one of his precious children in need of company going to get it with his grandson, but it was also someone his grandson had been attracted to. Maybe if things went well, Lucy and Laxus would start spending more time together.   
“There is another issue at hand that must be addressed, however. When you flushed out the base for Inferno Eclipse, you allowed a number of their mages to escape. This morning those that escaped arrest broke a few of the ones the magic council had in custody out. And apparently last night Lucy was attacked by at least three Inferno Eclipse mages. I don’t know if the two incidents are related but in a week when they are finished with their job you will meet them in Crocus and finish the job the king gave you.” The entire thing was enough to give Makarov a headache. “The council has yet to figure out how many managed to escape you the first time, or how many escaped this morning, so they have asked us to give them time to gather that information. You have a week to prepare yourselves for your next encounter with them. Lucy, Laxus, and the Raijinshū have already been informed of this and Lucy is filling them in on all the information she has of them. I believe Wendy has all the information you gathered from Sabertooth.”   
Makarov dismissed the three and sighed as he realized how much paperwork he was surely going to have to do with two of the strongest teams in Fairy Tail teaming up. Not to mention the fact that he still had to deal with the infighting between Erza and Lucy. That would have to be dealt with before Erza left for Crocus. 

In the week they had to prepare, Erza had been seriously reprimanded by Makarov for her harsh words towards one of her own nakama, especially someone close to her like Lucy, and in that time Natsu and Gray learned the reason behind why Lucy had felt the need to go on a solo job and prove herself. Natsu had been beyond angry at Erza and for a large portion of the week, he wouldn’t even talk to her. Gray stayed by his side while trying to convince the fire dragon that Erza and Lucy were allowed to have arguments and be frustrated with each other. By the time they were to set out with Wendy, Happy, Carla, and Erza, Natsu had nearly forgiven the Requip mage for her actions but he still wasn’t happy with her.   
The only good thing Natsu could think of that happened in that week was his and Gray’s relationship blossoming from being just friends to being lovers. The two decided that, with the exception of Gajeel, Levy, Wendy, and Happy, they weren’t going to tell anyone about their newfound relationship yet. Natsu wanted to wait until they had mated to inform the rest of their friends, so no one could judge them or try and talk them out of their feelings. It wasn’t that either of them thought anyone in Fairy Tail would; all of their friends would support them but there was still that thought in both of their minds that they wouldn’t be accepted. Gray wanted to establish that they could get along without fighting before they brought it up to anyone else in the guild.  
However, telling Happy about their new relationship had been more awkward for the ice mage than he expected it to be. Natsu had been nervous and almost backed out of it three times before Gray finally reminded him that the small blue exceed was his friend and he deserved to know something as significant as Natsu finding his mate. Gray’s support in Natsu’s friendship with Happy had nearly brought the fire dragon to tears. Natsu had been worried that Gray wouldn’t want to spend time with his longest friend, and that had been one of his reasons for not wanting to tell Happy right away.   
To Gray, the thought of separating the two was blasphemy. It wasn’t an option to him and he knew that by dating Natsu meant that he was going to have Happy along for most of the ride so to speak. Gray wasn’t about to ask Natsu to ignore his best friend in favor of their budding relationship. No, that wouldn’t be fair to either of the two and Gray respected both of them too much to try and tear them apart. 

Happy took the news relatively well. He had asked questions about their feelings for each other and how long they had been together but not once while Natsu and Gray were talking did he make fun of them. He had insisted that he was happy for the two and was more than happy that he was one of the first in the guild to know about something so special between them.   
Natsu and Gray had gone to bed that night with smiles on their faces and that made Happy even more excited for their growing relationship. As the blue exceed curled up next to the two sleeping men, he thought about how many adventures he had gone on with Natsu already. There were so many he couldn’t even keep track of them but he did know that this wasn’t going to be the end of their adventures. Just like when they added Lucy to their team, and then Wendy, Carla, Erza and Gray, later on, this would simply change how they went on their adventures. Maybe Natsu would go off on a job without Happy and with Gray instead, but just like when Happy went off on a job with Carla and Wendy that wouldn’t break their friendship. Happy found himself excited to have Gray with them on jobs more often. Yes, Happy was definitely happy for the two men and their growing relationship, and he wouldn’t allow anyone in the guild to tear them apart. 

 

Lucy was almost surprised by how simple the job request sounded when Laxus and Freed explained it to her. All they had to do was take down a monster that had been terrorizing a town and the surrounding forest for the last few months and provide the town’s mayor with its carcass as proof of death. When the blonde had asked what made this job so difficult, considering she had gone on plenty of jobs with Natsu and the rest of her team to hunt down monsters before, Freed informed her that this own seemed to refuse to stay down. Or at least, that’s what the rumors surrounding the beast claimed. Every wizard who had taken the request on previously had failed to kill it.   
Their first encounter with the monster proved the rumors true. The beast, a large feline-like creature with fur bristling like lightning, had easily dodged all of their attacks except for Laxus’s Roaring Thunder and shook off the magic like it was shaking off excess water from a bath. It wasn’t until they had all begun preparing another attack that Crux had contacted Lucy telepathically to inform her on the beast.   
“Hold on, I think Grandpa Crux has some information on what this thing is.” Lucy’s words caught everyone’s attention and even though it allowed the creature to roam away from them, they gathered around her as she summoned the old spirit. The spirit informed the group that the creature they were fighting was known as an Elemental Leviathan.   
“Leviathans are ancient creatures, as old as dragons and used to be just as powerful. It was widely believed that they went extinct many centuries ago since no one has seen one until now. If you are intent on killing this beast, let this be a warning. This creature’s element is lightning so any lightning based attacks will only enhance its strength. Water-based attacks would be better suited to killing that beast.” Crux immediately fell asleep after he finished giving his information and Lucy closed his gate with a sigh.   
“I guess we go track that thing down again.” She said once Crux’s gate was closed.   
“Lucy, none of us are water mages. We may need to retreat and call in backup. Juvia would be the best mage for this kind of thing.” Laxus stated as he stared down at the smaller blonde. Lucy shrugged before holding up Aquarius’s key.   
“I’ve got the strongest water bearer in the universe right here and it’s Wednesday.” Lucy was confident that if she could get even one good hit in on the beast with Aquarius the monster would go down. “All I need is a distraction.”   
When the five of them finally did find the beast again, not far from where they had first encountered it, the Raijinshū sent attacks to distract it while Lucy summoned Aquarius. She had warned them beforehand that the water bearer had a temper and would attack friend and foe alike so they made sure to keep out of her way when she did attack. Even though all of them had seen her participation in the naval battle during the Grand Magic Games, it was nothing like watching the celestial spirit in action up close when she had space to move around.   
As soon as the beast was incapacitated by Aquarius’s water, Freed and Evergreen delivered the finishing blow, effectively killing the creature. Part of Lucy was sad to see such an ancient creature be put down, but it was the job and she knew they had to do it. Bickslow left to get the mayor and show him the carcass of the beast and get their reward before setting up a camp for the night. None of them mentioned what the creature was, just that they had figured out its weakness and used that to their advantage.   
“I didn’t realize how smart you are blondie. I mean I knew you were smarter than your team but I didn’t realize just how smart.” Laxus complimented her as they were setting up the camp that night. Lucy couldn’t stop the blush that heated her cheeks as the other three immediately agreed with their leader. No one on her team ever complimented her like that, even when her plans did go the way she wanted them to. Then again, no one in her team seemed to understand what a plan was there for since they always rushed into things before even trying her plans.   
“I wish my team would see that sometimes.” Honestly, it wouldn’t hurt them to show their appreciation at least once in a while.   
“Now, here’s everything I have on Inferno Eclipse. It’s not much because Sabertooth didn’t have a whole lot either and I’m pretty sure we only went up against a few of their stronger mages,” Lucy started as she began explaining everything she had learned about the dark guild they were about to hunt when they got to Crocus the next night. All four of the mages listened to her, only asking questions for clarification when needed, as she explained her experiences and what she had gathered from Sabertooth’s research. In the morning they would leave for Crocus and meet up with Sabertooth and her own team to finish the job that should have been done two weeks ago. 

 

When it was time to head to the train station, Erza was nervous to meet up with Gray and Natsu. Wendy had encouraged her to apologize, saying that she was certain that Lucy had already forgiven her and all would be well. The Requip mage was well aware that she had made a huge mistake when she had commented on Lucy’s lack of help on their last job. It wasn’t even that the celestial mage wasn’t being helpful, it was that her skill set wasn’t useful in fights like that. Sighing, Erza realized she had stopped in front of the train station and the others were no doubt waiting for her inside. She swallowed her nerves and walked into the station, immediately seeing her teammates standing by one of the trains waiting for her. Hearing Happy call out her name brought a soft smile to her lips. At least some things never changed.   
The team had chosen to take a later train out so that they could arrive in Crocus early in the morning, rather than wasting their day traveling and not being able to do much in terms of research and preparation for their next encounter with the mages of Inferno Eclipse. It would also allow them all the chance to sleep so they could be fresh and awake for the day ahead of them.


	10. Chapter 10

Most of Natsu’s anger towards Erza had subsided by the time he had gotten on the train, and he knew that he wouldn’t sleep if he was still angry at her when the train started moving, so before they were set to depart he asked her to explain herself. Wendy had tried to defend the Requip mage at first but honestly, even she wanted to know what had been going through Erza’s mind when she said such mean things to someone she claimed to be friends with. Gray remained silent next to Natsu as he waited for Erza to speak up, hoping that whatever she had to say would be enough to calm the remaining bits of Natsu’s anger.   
“Nothing I can say will take back what I did. I said the worst things I could say to Lucy and I regret everything. Since we left that dark guild I haven’t felt like myself and it’s made my temper worse than normal. I took it out on someone who didn’t deserve it and for that, I deserve the worse punishment possible. I can only hope that Lucy will forgive me for the things I have said to her and accept me as her friend once again.”   
“Luce’s still your friend, Erza. She was hurt, especially if she felt the need to go on a job by herself to prove she was strong enough to be on our team, but she wouldn’t just stop being your friend.” Natsu said with a sigh. He could see how much Erza was beating herself up over what she had done, and he couldn’t bring himself to stay mad at her even if he wanted to. Before anyone could say anything more, the train lurched forward in movement and Natsu’s motion sickness kicked in immediately. Gray sighed as he gut-punched the fire mage to knock him unconscious so no one would have to deal with the suffering dragon slayer for the train ride. For the rest of the ride, Gray and Wendy avoided the subject of Erza’s argument with Lucy as much as they could while trying to keep things as peaceful as they could. They had a job to complete and dwelling on the negative would only hold them back at the moment. That was something they could all agree on. 

Lucy, Laxus, and the Raijinshū had arrived in Crocus a day earlier than Lucy’s team was due to arrive. Internally, the celestial mage couldn’t deny that she was happy about having one more day before she had to see any of them. While she did love her team and she was excited to see them tomorrow, she still wanted one more day to herself.  
As soon as they were off the train the group was met by Sting and Rogue. Lucy could sense a slight amount of tension between Laxus and Sting as they stared each other down so she cleared her throat and put herself between the two men. Behind Sting, she saw Rogue give a small smile at her actions.   
“It’s good to see you two again! It’s been too long!” Lucy’s smile was contagious as Sting grinned at her and picked her up into a hug. She swore she almost heard a growl from behind her but decided it had to have been her imagination.   
“You guys didn’t have to come all the way down here to greet us,” Lucy added when Sting finally put her down. Of course, she was immediately swooped into another hug by Rogue.   
“Damn Cosplayer, is there anyone you can’t charm?” Bickslow commented with a wicked laugh, causing Rogue to let Lucy go with a shake of his head, though he still had the smile on his lips.   
“We are heading the team of Sabertooth mages to help you capture the rest of Inferno Eclipse. They were last seen in Crocus yesterday so we went ahead and got rooms at an inn for everyone so we can plan our strategy on capturing them.” Rogue replied to Lucy’s comment, ignoring Bickslow completely.   
The two Sabertooth mages led the group to the inn where they had gotten rooms for everyone, given room keys to the group, and brought them to the room where Orga and Rufus were staying to find the memory-make mage and Yukino huddled around a table trying to organize a stack of papers. Orga, along with Frosch and Lector, was watching them and getting whatever they requested. Lucy greeted the small group before settling down with Rufus and Yukino to begin explaining her own encounters with the mages of Inferno Eclipse. 

“Kasumi Sickle. She’s a fire mage and fairly strong. Maybe not as strong as Natsu when he’s at his best but from what I saw she was pretty strong. Strong enough to give Gray and Erza a hard time.” Currently, they were going over the three mages the Magic Council had been able to identify. Lucy shuddered as she looked over the limited information they had on them.   
“This guy, Ren Erers, seems to be the guild master. He was the other mage arrested by the Magic Council. And apparently, his younger brother Ryuu Erers is a known member of the guild as well.” Rogue added as he studied the two men. “He probably stepped in for his brother as guild master while Ren was under arrest.”   
“From our own experiences, we know they have an ice and a wind mage, but we have no idea if they were arrested or not.” Rufus had committed their magic to his memory during his first encounter but he hadn’t come across them since.   
After they had gone over all the information they each had individually, the entire group began planning an attack with their gathered knowledge, Lucy factoring in for her team’s destructive ways when she realized no one else would, and decided to call it a night when they had noticed the sun had set hours ago.  
The group decided to order dinner in but had moved to Sting and Rogue’s room to let Rufus get some sleep since he had been focusing so much of his time on the research that even he didn’t realize how much sleep he hadn’t been getting. Yukino left shortly after eating, stating she had gotten up early to help Rufus with the research and Evergreen was quick to follow, claiming to be tired from the trip.   
That left Lucy in the room with three dragon slayers, two exceeds, one god slayer, Bickslow and Freed. She should feel uncomfortable; these weren’t her boys and this wasn’t her team. These weren’t her dragons or her exceeds, and certainly, all three gave a more possessive vibe than Natsu or Wendy ever did. Frosch and Lector were much calmer and nicer than Happy and Carla was, and it seemed that they respected Lucy more than the blue and white exceed did.   
“I have to say, Lucy, we were expecting you to show up with Natsu. Not that we aren’t happy to have you guys here or anything…” Sting started, trailing off when he realized that what he said could have been insulting to Laxus and the Raijinshū.  
“We were just surprised is all.” Rogue finished, smacking Sting’s head lightly. Lucy offered the Twin Dragons a soft smile and a light giggle from her spot between Bickslow and Laxus. The two men had been her support beam since she had opened up about what Erza had said to her. Bickslow was like the brother she wished she always had while Laxus was a giant teddy bear when she needed it. Even Freed had jumped in to comfort her when she needed it, acting as another older brother when she needed one.   
“I took a solo job and ran into Laxus and the Raijinshū while I was out. They offered to allow me to travel with them so I was with them when Makarov informed us of Inferno Eclipse escaping from ERA.” Lucy didn’t really want to go into detail on why she had gone on a job alone but knowing how nosey Sting was, she probably would. The white dragon slayer was staring at her, waiting for her to continue because he knew there was more to the story than that. When the celestial mage didn’t add anything on he sighed, knowing he would have to drag it out of her.   
“And why were you on a solo job? I didn’t think Natsu would leave you alone long enough for you to accept a job without him.” That was something Sting had noticed during the Grand Magic Games and the few times he had seen Natsu and his team afterward; Lucy was always with him. It was almost annoying to the white dragon, except he had simply assumed that the two were mated and felt the need to be around each other all the time. The fire dragon had been extremely protective of the celestial mage, even more so after the Games and it had taken a while for Sting and Rogue to apologize to her for what Minerva had done to her.   
“He was still in Crocus at the time recovering from some illness or something. Wendy wouldn’t explain it to me.” That alone still bothered her, but she knew that Natsu was fine while he was in Gray’s care. “Besides I’m perfectly capable of handling myself!”  
“We don’t doubt that. It’s just…” Rogue didn’t know if he should bring up what he and Sting both thought.  
“They thought you were Natsu’s mate Blondie.” Laxus finished for the shadow dragon, a hint of amusement in his voice as he spoke. The lightning dragon had been more than happy when she had confirmed for him that the two were not mates or dating since that was how he had put it.  
“Mate? I don’t understand…?” Lucy had never heard that term in this sort of context before. She looked over at Laxus for clarification but when it became obvious the large slayer wasn’t going to give it to her she looked to the Twin Dragons instead.   
“His...partner. Romantic and...otherwise.” Rogue stated awkwardly. The fact that Lucy didn’t know what they were talking about must have meant she wasn’t mated to the fire dragon.   
“Like Levy is to Gajeel?” She asked looking up at Laxus. When the lightning dragon nodded she huffed   
“Definitely not. Natsu is...Natsu. I doubt he even understands what that would mean. He’s never shown any interest in anyone that way and certainly not me.” And Lucy was perfectly fine with that. The last thing she wanted was to have Natsu as a romantic partner of the same capacity. Besides she had seen that spark between him and Gray when they were taking care of the fire dragon and would have rather kindled that fire instead.   
“But he’s so...protective of you…?” Sting commented with a confused expression.   
“I get kidnapped a lot.” Lucy probably shouldn’t have been proud of that fact. Orga even snorted when he heard her say it. A shower of gold indicated that one of her spirits had summoned themselves and she didn’t even need to look to know which one it was.   
“That’s because my princess is incredibly beautiful,” Loke commented as he attempted to get passed Bickslow to press a kiss to Lucy’s cheek.   
“Go home, Loke. I didn’t need your comment. You’re part of the reason I get kidnapped so much.” Lucy really had no patience for her lion’s attempts for her affection at this point. She aimed a kick at him but he had already disappeared in a shower of golden light before it hit. “Stupid cat.”   
“You do get kidnapped a lot Cosplayer,” Bickslow commented after the celestial mage settled down again.   
“People are either after my keys or my power. Celestial mages are rare and I hold ten of the zodiac keys.” That was a fact that Lucy was more than proud of. She had worked hard to collect those keys and had developed a bond with not only her zodiac spirits but her silver key spirits as well. It took time and a lot of magic, but well worth the effort.  
“And that’s why it doesn’t make sense for Erza to not see how strong you are. She must be blind if she can’t see how gifted you are Cosplayer.” Lucy rolled her eyes and smacked the seith mage for his comment.   
“Thanks, Bicks.” She appreciated the encouraging words, she honestly did, but now the Sabertooth mages knew that Erza had said something to her and that was the last thing she had wanted. A glance at them confirmed her suspicion as both dragon slayers were staring at her expectantly, and even Orga was waiting for clarification. She sighed and sat up straighter.  
“The last time my team fought with Inferno Eclipse Erza was in a rush to finish the job rather than do things properly and give me time to actually read over the note you guys gave to King Toma. Natsu got hit with whatever illness he’d been suffering from and was out of commission for a few days so instead of letting him get over it or taking Gray with her, who is stronger in ambush attacks like she was planning, she took me to try and finish them off before they could escape. Needless to say, we were overwhelmed and I’m useless if the spirit I need is unable to come to my call. Loke and Virgo were trying to help the best they could but if Gray and Natsu hadn’t arrived when they did, we would have been toast. On the train ride back to Magnolia, Erza told me I was too weak to belong in Fairy Tail. I took a job on my own to prove to myself that she was wrong.” Lucy had gotten over the most of her anger, but now that she thought about it again, she felt like she had let down not only her team but most of the kingdom as well. Bickslow pulled her into a hug, already seeing how her soul’s shine started to dull with the negative thoughts pouring into her head.  
“You guys shouldn’t have been there by yourselves in the first place. We had asked King Toma to let us help you and all he wanted was our research. We were pissed when we heard that he was expecting you guys to do it alone. Those guys drained many of our mages of their magic like it was nothing.” Sting had nearly thrown a fit when the king insisted on Fairy Tail going alone but he knew that they were Toma’s favorite guild. He understood, knew that the guild was strong. He had witnessed it first hand, but that didn’t change the fact that he was angry at the situation the king put them all in.   
“It’s not your fault Lucy. It’s very possible that they played a part in how Erza is acting. They have so many mages we don’t even know what kind of magic they have at their beck and call. You did nothing wrong, and I know we will stop them for good this time.” Rogue added, a soft smile gracing his lips. Even if he didn’t want to take Lucy on as a mate like Sting had felt compelled to do after the Grand Magic Games, Rogue felt a draw to her. He wanted her as his kin, viewed her as his sister, and he hated that she felt so terrible about herself that she felt the need to leave her team to prove herself.  
“I know we will. And when we do, I’m going to punch Erza until she apologizes.” Lucy would probably regret that, but Erza had hurt her and deserved it. The comment earned her a round of laughs from the room before Lucy stood up and stretched. She announced she was going to bed, excited to be able to sleep in an actual bed instead of in a tent. 

The next morning, while Evergreen and Bickslow had volunteered to get the rest of the Fairy Tail mages from the train station, Rufus, Lucy, Rogue, and Freed decided to refine their plan as much as they could to prevent any surprises from happening as Lucy ran into. 

When Erza, Natsu, Wendy, and Gray arrived in Crocus it was later than they had planned. They had taken the later train ride so they could get there in the morning but apparently, it was still late morning when the train pulled up. Erza was surprised to see Bickslow and Evergreen waiting for them at the train station. Part of the Requip mage was happy but she had hoped that Lucy would be the one to greet them.   
“Cosplayer is busy planning an all-out attack on Inferno Eclipse with Freed. The sooner we get there the easier it’ll be to catch up on the plan and prepare ourselves.” Bickslow explained when Natsu asked where Lucy was. So far he didn’t know if the four of them were aware of Fairy Tail teaming up with Sabertooth, so he didn’t want to ruin the surprise just yet. Besides, Bickslow hadn’t quite forgiven Erza for what she said to Lucy yet and he wasn’t too thrilled about having to work with her at all. At least Freed and Lucy hadn’t put him on her team.   
When they arrived at the inn, Bickslow and Evergreen did the same thing Sting and Rogue had done with them the day prior by showing them their rooms and giving them their room keys before taking them to Rufus and Orga’s room to meet up with the rest of the group.   
After Rufus and Freed went over the entire plan, with Lucy and Rogue tossing in minor details every so often, everyone in the group was finally on the same page. Everyone went their separate ways to relax for the last part of the day before they would leave to start their mission.   
Before Lucy’s team could even ask her to go with them Yukino had asked her to go shopping, and Evergreen insisted on going with. Lucy wanted to invite Erza and Wendy but neither Evergreen nor Yukino was going to give her a chance as they dragged her out of the inn and out towards the market. Really, she didn’t mind. It gave Lucy the opportunity to spend time with two friends she didn’t see often enough. It had been a fun evening filled with a lot of laughter and shopping, to the point where Lucy almost forgot that they had a large battle ahead of them.


	11. Chapter 11

In the morning the mages set out for where Rogue had tracked Inferno Eclipse’s new base. Each mage knew what their job was once they got there and there was nothing but determined looks on each of their faces.  
The building itself wasn’t too far outside of Crocus. Just like the original one that Team Natsu had encountered two weeks earlier, the building was abandoned and seemingly in ruins. All of them could feel the magic energy pouring out of the building as if they were standing inside a magic circle. It put Wendy on edge as she held onto Carla a bit tighter.  
Without a word Rogue, Sting, and Evergreen split off from the group to go around to the south side of the building where they would use Rogue’s shadows to enter. Yukino, Rufus, and Orga followed suit and headed to the east with Gray, Erza, and Natsu taking the west. Lucy, Bickslow, and Laxus would go in from the northern entrance once everyone else was inside while Freed, Wendy, and the exceeds stayed behind to provide support as needed. From what Rogue had determined during his earlier reconnaissance, the northern entrance was the most heavily guarded and as such would be the hardest to breach. Lucy could get past that with Virgo and between Bickslow and Laxus whoever they faced inside wouldn’t be an issue when it came to numbers. They all just had to be careful not to get injured before Lucy could get Laxus and Bickslow inside. 

Rogue had just entered the building when he felt someone’s presence near the door he was supposed to open for Evergreen and Sting. Lashing out quickly, he pulled the mage into his shadows before he could alert anyone to the shadow dragon’s presence and opened the door for his partners quickly. Evergreen and Sting were quick to get in and close the door before any alarms went off and the three immediately began searching the rooms for any and all mages connected with Inferno Eclipse.  
By the time they got to the end of the third hallway in their area, they hadn’t come across many mages at all and the few they had encountered were weak. Sting commented about how boring the fights had been so far and Rogue had to agree, though he didn’t voice his agreement aloud. Evergreen seemed to have the same thoughts as she sighed.  
As Rogue checked out the last room in the hallway, he was surprised at how many mages were hiding out in the room. The shadow dragon didn’t even get a chance to warn his partners before he was attacked. The door was broken down by Sting as he and Evergreen came rushing in. The three of them fought off the larger group as best they could but it was hard to keep track of each other in the heat of the battle. At one point Sting looked over at Rogue and he was handling maybe six mages just fine, then all of a sudden when he looked over again three of them had overpowered the shadow dragon slayer. Evergreen seemed to be handling herself fairly well between her Fairy Magic and Stone Eyes and Sting didn’t feel like he needed to worry over her nearly as much as he did Rogue. All Sting could see, however, was a chaotic flurry of shadow magic as Rogue fought off his opponents. 

Aky was trying her hardest not to hurt the shadow mage that she was fighting. Really, she was simply trying to protect Vemazhe more than fight the mage in front of her but when he had dodged one of Mina’s wind attacks and it had almost hit her sister, Aky reacted without a thought. She had iced the floor and set up stalagmites to keep Mina’s attacks from hitting her sister. In doing so she had accidentally hit the shadow mage, assuming he would dodge it like he had every other attack. 

Orga, Rufus, and Yukino had far fewer mages in the eastern side of the building than they expected so it took them a very short time to incapacitate their targets and clear the building. Rufus put up a set of runes that he learned from Freed the day before to keep their enemies from fleeing through the area they had just cleared as soon as they had determined no one had noticed their presence yet. For a moment they debated what they should do, either they hung out where they were and hoped that everyone else was doing fine or they split up and tried to assist the other three teams that were in the building. The debate only lasted a minute at most before Orga declared he was heading north to see if Laxus’s team needed help since there were so many mages concentrated there. Yukino decided to head south to assist Rogue and Sting as best as she could since they were the first ones inside. That left Rufus to head west to assist Gray’s team. He didn’t mind too much as he had been interested in sparring with the ice-make mage. 

The familiar and almost unsettling feeling of Libra’s Gravity Change alerted Sting to Yukino’s presence in the room as most of their enemies fell to the floor under the sudden pressure. Unfortunately, the attack didn’t come in time to stop the assault on Rogue and Sting looked over just as Rogue fell to the floor in a bloody heap. Around him were three mages and various ice stalagmites jutting out from the ground. The Holy dragon gave an enraged scream as he attacked all three mages at once with his dragon’s claw. As soon as they were knocked off their feet, Libra kept them pinned to the ground while summoning Deneb to request Wendy’s help in healing Rogue’s wounds. For once, the swan spirit didn’t argue or complain about his orders as he did exactly as Yukino asked.  
Wendy arrived as quickly as she could with Deneb following her, Frosch, and Lector closely. The two exceeds were worried about their friends and hated having to sit out of the fight while Sting and Rogue were risking their lives.  
“It’s okay Frosch. I’ll take care of Rogue I promise.” Wendy was there solely for support and she swore she would do everything she could to keep everyone alive. While she couldn’t completely heal Rogue’s wound she could use the little bit of healing magic she did know to stop the bleeding and accelerate the healing process. She just had to focus, and hope that no one else had wounds as harsh as Rogue’s was. This would take much of her magic energy to do and all of her concentration.  
While Wendy worked, Yukino and Evergreen went around and placed runes to keep the Inferno Eclipse mages from entering that wing of the building.  
“This effectively cuts off half the building to them. Now it’s up to Natsu’s team to cut off their section and we can continue with the last part of the plan, once Wendy’s done with taking care of Rogue’s wound.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up so long I had to cut it in half and this was the best place to end this one. I'll try to have chapter 12 up within a couple of days!


	12. Chapter 12

Gray, Erza, and Natsu were not known for being anything less than destructive when they were tasked with something. Gray had picked the lock of the western door with his ice make magic to allow them into the building and at first, things were going well. No one had come after them so they assumed they hadn’t triggered any sort of alarm or anything of the sort. Natsu was almost ready to complain about how easy the job had been compared to how much planning had gone into the attacks. It wasn’t until they exited the hallway they were following and entered the larger room that they realized just how badly they had screwed up. There were more mages than they had faced the first time they encountered the dark guild and each one seemed to be ready for a fight.  
Erza requipped into her Heaven’s Wheel armor immediately. Natsu covered his fists in flames while Gray leaned into his ice-make stance and prepared to fight their way through the vast number of mages in front of them.  
Within seconds the three were split up and fighting off more mages than they could easily count. Neither Natsu or Erza were paying attention to Gray, just as he wasn't paying attention to their fights, until they heard him give a cry of pain. When Natsu looked over, he realized that despite the fact that he and Erza had plenty of mages fighting against them, Gray had even more. In fact, most of the mages were focusing on Gray rather than Erza or Natsu. That thought pissed Natsu off and he began punching his way through the mages around him even harder to get to his mate. Gray was on the ground with a wound to his side bleeding heavily. A mage was about to deal another blow to him, one that would have ended his life if it landed and he was trying to bite through the pain long enough to counter the attack when a familiar voice sounded above the fighting.  
“ **Memory-Make: Blade of Flashing Lightning!** ” Gray recognized the attack from his fight with Rufus during the Grand Magic Games and was thankful it wasn’t being used against him as he would have been unable to dodge it. Rufus shot off a barrage of attacks to help finish off the remaining mages, before joining Natsu and Erza by Gray’s side.  
Though the mages were defeated and wouldn’t be getting up any time soon, Natsu’s anger wasn’t settling down. He could have lost his mate, the person his dragon had chosen to spend the rest of his life with, and he couldn’t control his anger. The way his body was pulsing with magic energy was almost similar to when he went into dragon force, and with no one to fight Natsu did not need to go into his dragon force. Gray struggled through the pain to pull Natsu into him, whispered calming words into his ear and pressed their bodies together in an effort to calm the raging dragon. Having Natsu tear the building down in his rage would have been counterproductive, despite how hot he found his mate’s worry over his well being. His efforts did little to calm the fire dragon until the ice mage finally pressed his lips to Natsu’s and distracted him from the source of his anger.  
“I’m alright Natsu. A small wound like this won’t take me from you.” He whispered softly, only vaguely aware of Erza and Rufus watching them as Natsu finally calmed down enough to agree with his mate. Natsu pressed a soft kiss to the side of Gray’s neck before pulling away so his wound could be tended to.  
The ice mage froze his wound to stop the bleeding before allowing Erza to wrap it up. Neither she nor Rufus had mentioned what they had witnessed as they left the room the meet up with everyone else in the main entryway. Rufus once again closed off the exit with runes to keep anyone from fleeing that way.  
Gray was leaning on Natsu for support as Erza slowly led them through the hallways towards the northern entryway where Laxus’s team should have been finishing up their part. Rufus brought up the rear, keeping an eye out for any stragglers who had gotten away from any of the four teams. The last thing they needed was a surprise attack when one of them was injured. 

Lucy had called Virgo out to help get her, Bickslow, and Laxus into the building safely. As soon as they were in, the spirit closed up her tunnels but remained outside with Freed, Wendy, and the exceeds just in case anyone needed assistance. Almost immediately after they were in, Laxus and Bickslow immediately started attacking every mage they saw with the Inferno Eclipse guild mark on them. Lucy tried to help the best she could with her whip and Loke came out to offer assistance as well, but she wasn’t doing nearly as much damage as the two men were. She found though, as she watched Laxus’s lightning rip through the room and Bickslow’s dolls tear away at whoever tried to escape the dragon slayer, that she didn’t mind staying out of her way. The two obviously knew how to work well with each other since they had been on a team together for so long. The celestial mage didn’t feel useless as she watched the two fight while she hung back and sent Loke after whoever managed to slip passed Bickslow. When she noticed mages trying to flee down other hallways, away from herself and Bickslow, she summoned Sagittarius and had him shoot those mages down. She would be damned if she allowed anyone to escape them this time around.  
There were too many mages for the three of them to subdue quickly, however, and Lucy watched horrified as Bickslow was hit by a fireball from the same fire mage that had attacked her team in the forest outside of Crocus two weeks prior. Even with his injury, the seith mage tried to fight her off and it wasn’t until Lucy stepped in that he allowed himself to give pause.  
Bickslow’s leg was burning, from more than just the fire it had been hit with, so he was more than thankful to be able to take the pressure off of it for even a few moments while Lucy took care of the fire mage in front of him. If he remembered the information she gave him correctly, this was Kasumi. Lucy’s mermaid spirit was better suited against her than the seith mage, and he wouldn’t mind seeing the badass spirit in action again.  
Lucy recalled Loke and called out Aquarius knowing that her spirit would be beyond pissed that it was supposed to be her day off, but the best way to fight a fire mage was with an even stronger water bearer. With a quick warning to Bickslow, Aquarius was summoned and nearly drowned the surrounding area with raging waters. The seith mage was not expecting to nearly get swept up in the giant wave the mermaid summoned but he had been glad for the warning and that the blonde celestial mage had stepped in between him and Aquarius to protect him the best she could.  
Laxus barely managed to avoid the angry spirit’s attack. If he hadn’t launched an attack at just the right time, he would have been caught in the wave just like many of the enemy mages were. It seemed that those who had been caught were only the weaker mages, or those weak against water attacks, but it certainly helped Laxus by reducing the number of targets for him.  
“Only on Wednesday's brat!” Aquarius didn’t even give Laxus or Bickslow a glance before she returned to the celestial world. Far used to her easily angered spirit by now, Lucy merely shrugged the encounter off and looked around the room. The attack only took out about half of the remaining mages but it had the desired effect of stopping the fire mage in her tracks. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need Aquarius for a week or so after this so she could give the spirit time to cool down. Once more calling Loke out, Lucy stayed in front of Bickslow to keep a guard over him. 

Ryuu was surprised at how well the three mages that had burst into his guild base had worked together. From what Kasumi and Ren had reported after their breakout, the first set of Fairy Tail mages were weak and had only gotten lucky that the Rune Knights were following after them. If they didn’t have the magic council following them, Aldik, Ren, and Kasumi could have easily finished the Fairy Tail mages during their first encounter. Instead, Ren ordered Aldik to use his manipulation magic to plant the seed of discord in the weak light guild, just in case they came after them again. Seemed his brother had made the right call. Ryuu would have preferred to simply kill all of the weak mages that crossed their path, but then that was what his brother was there for, to keep Ryuu calm and level-headed so he could make the proper judgment calls needed when leading a guild.  
When Inferno Eclipse succeeded in their goal of creating the strongest army and taking down the kingdom of Fiore, Ryuu would have to make certain his brother got the recognition he deserved. First, they would have to get through this minor set back before they could continue on to their ultimate goal. If he could just take out the lightning mage, this would be all over. He was their main source of strength, the brute of the group it seemed. Ryuu would go after the man himself. 

The scene Orga walked into could be described as nothing short of a circus. Lucy was protecting an injured Bickslow, who was still trying to help the fight by commanding his dolls to protect the celestial mage. Laxus seemed to be fighting someone who was much stronger than everyone else in the room, and while he had the advantage in his size and brute strength he was still losing. The god slayer didn’t even think before he jumped into the gray, falling into step next to the dragon slayer.  
Laxus wanted to be annoyed at the intervention of the Sabertooth mage but honestly, he couldn’t even bring himself to be angry at anything except the dark mage in front of him. The bastard had decided to send hall of his mages after Lucy and Bickslow and keep the dragon slayer occupied by distracting him with illusions. As much as he had wanted to tell Orga to go help his friends, Laxus needed the assistance.  
“We need to knock him out and fast.” He growled as the god slayer came to a stop next to him. The only way they were going to win was to overpower the man long enough to know him unconscious.  
“Maybe we should try combining our attacks?” Orga had never tried combining his lighting with anyone else’s attacks before, but he remembered how the sky dragon and god slayers powers felt when they clashed during the Grand Magic Games. Laxus seemed to think about it for a second before giving the Sabertooth mage a cocky smirk.  
“Whenever you’re ready.” Ignoring the illusions that surrounded them, Laxus prepared his strongest attack but held off as he waited for Orga to get his attack ready as well. They would have one shot at this, so they had to make it count.  
“ **Dragon Slayer Secret Art: Roaring Thunder!** ”  
“ **Lightning God’s Charged Particle Cannon!** ”  
The two attacks combined and the intense voltage of the lightning sent Ryuu back, his entire body convulsing from the electricity charging through him. Both lightning mages waited for a moment to see if the man would get back up before Laxus turned to Lucy and Bickslow. He was surprised to see that his friends had stopped the onslaught of mages from getting close to them and most of the enemies who had been close to their own battle were also knocked unconscious. A few more punches from Loke and the battle was finished. Virgo had summoned herself to tie up those who had already been defeated so they couldn’t flee should they wake before the Rune Knights arrived.  
“Princess, Sir Freed wanted me to inform you that he has located the guild master and has gone after him. Miss Wendy is tending to Rogue in the southern part of the building but everyone else is on their way here.” The maid spirit informed Lucy as she began tending to Bickslow’s injury.  
“Laxus!” Lector’s voice surprised the four mages as they looked up to see the red exceed flying into the room. “We got a huge problem!” 

“Vem, stop!” Aky hissed as she watched her sister shakily stand up. The two had been listening to the mages plan and try to figure out what their next move was going to be but both were well aware that the light mages weren’t alone.  
Evergreen was the first to notice the green haired girl standing and was already preparing her Fairy Machine Gun attack when she realized the girl wasn’t trying to attack or get away. She waited, trying to determine if it was simply because of Libra’s Gravity Change or if it was because she wanted something else that she wasn’t running.  
“Master Ren...he’s in a chamber in the middle of this building...but he’s not the one you need to worry about...not unless you harm his brother. Ryuu is more dangerous than the master…” Vemazhe wanted to beg the light mages to put a stop to the two mages who had ruled over the mages in Inferno Eclipse with an iron fist. A few feet from her, Vemazhe could see Mina glaring at her and that gave her the courage she needed to continue. “Master is protected by a manipulation mage...stronger than any of us. Stop them all...end this nightmare…”  
Vemazhe couldn’t keep up against the pressure and when she felt biting winds hitting her she screamed. Mina had just enough strength in her to send out one last attack, to silence the traitor in front of her. The scream the filled the room was deafening as Mina was instantly encased in ice by Aky, the ice mage crying out for her fallen sister.  
“Vem! Talk to me damn it! Don’t you dare leave me yet!” Aky couldn’t even see through the tears blurring her vision as she crawled towards her sister. An order came from one of the light mages and suddenly the pull of gravity that had kept her against the ground was lifted. The ice mage ran to her sister and pulled her into her arms. “I was supposed to protect you…” 

Sting was in shock as he watched the scene unfold in front of him. He knew that Evergreen would have attacked any of the mages that stood, should they have made any move to flee or attack, but for the enemy to give them vital information? That was unexpected. He had seen enemies turn on each other before but not quite like what he had just seen. The wind mage used the last of her magic to attack her own ally rather than the only who was controlling the situation, a mistake on her part that Sting wouldn’t take lightly.  
He didn’t argue with Yukino for allowing the ice mage to run to the fallen mage, in fact, he was curious to know just what kind of relationship they had that she would have encased someone she was supposed to be loyal to in ice. He almost felt sorry for her as he watched her cry over the wounded woman. Except, it was her magic that had harmed Rogue. She had wounded his best friend so even if she was losing someone she cared about, Sting had a hard time feeling sorry for her when she had harmed the person he most cared about.  
“Sting…” Rogue’s voice pulled the white dragon from his thoughts and Sting turned away from the two women to return his attention solely on his best friend. The color was already back in Rogue’s cheeks and most of the blood had stopped flowing. Both were good signs that the shadow dragon would pull through this just fine.  
“We need to warn Laxus about that manipulation mage. He’s closest to the guild master. I wouldn’t be surprised if his brother wasn’t there too…” Even when he was injured, Rogue was trying to think through things logically. Unlike Sting who wanted nothing more than to forget the job and simply get Rogue home, the shadow dragon was determined to see things through.  
“I can let everyone know!” Lector offered, knowing that Frosch wouldn’t want to leave Rogue in the state he was in. Lector had already spread his wings and was about to leave to track down Laxus when he was stopped.  
“Ryuu is in the room just before the front entrance. Ren and Aldik are in the main hall...Aldik spoke of planting a seed within Fairy Tail…” The ice mage spoke, causing everyone to look over at her.  
“What kind of seed?” Evergreen demanded as she stalked over to the woman. The fairy didn’t take attacks on her nakama lightly, even more so now that she had grown closer to many of them. The white-haired woman shook her head, still not looking at any of them.  
“I don’t know. They didn’t trust us enough to give us that sort of information. Whatever it was had to do with the mind. Aldik is strong at mind manipulation. It’s how he got Vem and me to join this fucking guild. Neither of us wanted to hurt anyone.”  
Sting sighed to himself, realizing that he couldn't be angry at her. She was obviously there against her will. She probably hadn’t even meant to attack Rogue in the first place. With a subtle nod to Lector, the exceed left to relay the information to Laxus and his team. The job came first, figuring out why these women were in a dark guild when they didn’t want to be would have to come later. 

Freed knew this couldn’t wait any longer. The Rune Knights were already on their way to their location and Lahar had been clear that he didn’t want to wait long to arrest Inferno Eclipse. As a result, he had sent Carla and Happy out to see who they could send to him as back up while he took on the last group of mages that hadn’t been handled, as far as his information from Virgo had suggested. With the maid spirit’s help, he was able to get into the building easily and quickly made his way to the only room that had yet to be cleared by his comrades. He had no doubt that this would be a difficult battle, especially with how long it seemed to be taking Wendy to heal Rogue’s wound, but he couldn’t let his friends and comrades down.  
Before he stepped into the room, Freed placed runes that prevented the escape of anyone in the Inferno Eclipse guild. There were few mages inside the room, but the ones who were in there just felt strong to Freed. He was starting to wish that he had brought someone with him, and could only hope that he held out long enough for help to arrive. 

Erza and Natsu had sent Gray outside to wait for the Rune Nights when they learned that Freed was about to engage in battle with the master of the guild. Then, followed closely by Rufus, they set off for the last room left in the building. On the way, they ran into Yukino, Sting, and Evergreen who had left Rogue in Wendy’s care. The six ran as fast as they could to the room, Evergreen taking the lead when she learned from Happy that Freed was fighting on his own.  
“Wait, so you guys were on your way there and didn’t know Freed was fighting? Why go there in the first place?” Rufus asked as he turned his head to look at his guild master.  
“Two of the mages turned on Inferno Eclipse and gave us key information. Apparently, the guild master and his bodyguard are in that room.” Sting replied shortly, not bothering to return Rufus’s gaze. Rufus usually acted as a secondary consultant to Sting as guild master but right now he needed to focus on finishing this damned job. “I sent Lector to give Laxus and his team a heads up. They should already be there by the time we get there.”  
Sure enough, by the time the group got to the great hall, Freed was already in his Dark Écriture: Darkness form, fighting with a white-eyed mage while Lucy, Laxus, and Orga were fighting against the green-eyed mage. Every other Inferno Eclipse mage had been knocked out already. The group decided to split up. Erza and Natsu immediately went to Lucy’s side while Sting suggested everyone else go help Freed. Not that Evergreen needed the guild master to tell her that as she had already made her way to her friend and begun fighting alongside him.  
Evergreen had been friends with Freed long enough to be able to tell when he was running out of energy. She had no idea how long he had been using the Darkness form but she knew he would be running on fumes soon if he wasn’t already. While she worried about Laxus, he had two people helping him in his fight.  
“Be careful, he’s a manipulation mage,” Evergreen warned her friend as she came to a stop next to him. There was no indication that Freed heard her, but she didn’t need one. Freed was calculating and tactful. If he hadn’t already figured that out, he would use the new information to his advantage now.  
Except that it wasn’t just the two of them against the dark mage. Sabertooth had cut in the help, with Sting throwing White dragon roars in between Rufus’s memory-make attacks. Yukino had summoned Pisces and the mother and son spirits threw in their own attacks when they got the chance.  
“Let us handle the rest Freed. You’ve used your Dark Écriture enough for one day.” Evergreen offered the green-haired man a soft smile before she shot off her own attacks until the manipulation mage was unconscious.  
Freed looked over after the white-eyed mage had fallen to see that Laxus’s team had finished their battle as well. Moments later the entire building was swarming with Rune Knights and Freed felt himself relax. The job was over and hopefully, this was the last they would hear about Inferno Eclipse.


	13. Chapter 13

It took the group longer than they would have liked to return to Crocus. Due to the injuries of Rogue, Gray, and Bickslow, the half-day trek took nearly a full day. Wendy had done all she could to heal the wounds but she was running low on magic by the time she got to Bickslow’s injury. Sting had offered to let some of those who weren’t injured go on ahead to inform King Toma of the success of their job, as well as recover sooner, but Natsu had refused to leave Gray alone and Erza refused to leave without her team. Sting himself hadn’t wanted to leave without Rogue and the rest of Sabertooth had insisted on following their guild master. Bickslow was taking turns leaning on Freed and Laxus to help him walk. Lucy had refused to leave him in such a state and was even helping keep his spirit up by joking around with him.   
Sting had been surprised to see how well she got along with the Raijinshū. It was like they had been friends since childhood rather than just guildmates for a few years, but the celestial mage shined brightly with Laxus and his friends. In fact, the white dragon was almost certain that she was shining brighter with them than she was with her own team.   
So while the return home had been slow, Sting couldn’t complain. He had learned a lot about the woman he had once had a crush on, including the fact that she was able to make friends with people easily. It was one of the things he adored about her. That and her smile. Her smile could brighten up Sting’s day any time he saw it.

When they finally made it back to Crocus, Sting asked Lucy and Laxus go report to the king, with Orga and Yukino accompany them. They took the injured back to their inn so they could rest more and so that Wendy could regain her own strength. Each of the wounded was in their rooms and Wendy was in the room she shared with Erza.   
Sting stayed with Rogue to keep an eye on his wound while Natsu did the same with Gray. Freed had offered to keep Bickslow company since Evergreen had wanted to go shopping when Yukino got back. The fairy had heard a lot about Sabertooth’s celestial mage from Lucy and was curious to get to know her more.   
Erza had left to shop on her own, muttering to herself about getting a gift to apologize. When Lucy and Laxus returned with the two Sabertooth mages, they dealt out the reward issued to the two guilds for the job and the two blondes left the inn on their own.   
Orga decided to grab a bite to eat with Rufus before returning and relaxing in their room for the rest of the evening. The blond memory mage relaxed by reading while Orga practiced his music. 

Erza had spent most of the afternoon trying to find the perfect gift to apologize to Lucy with. There wasn’t anything she could find that was worthy of such an apology but Erza decided she wasn’t going to stop looking until she found the perfect gift. As she passed a small cafe near Mercurius, Erza paused when she saw Lucy and Laxus sitting at a table outside. The two were laughing and smiling as they talked and shared a slice of cake. The Requip mage never realized the two were close nor that they had actually talked to each other much before this job. Maybe, it was something she could ask Lucy about when she finally got to apologize to her. 

Lucy had wanted to get everyone who had been injured something to make them feel better. She had already found something for Gray, though she wasn’t sure if he would appreciate the beauty of the sculptures quite like the celestial mage had when she bought them, and had her eye on a few books she was sure Rogue would enjoy. However, she had no idea what to get the seith mage that was currently unable to walk properly. So she had asked Laxus to come with her to get their friend something. She didn’t want to get him something generic like Gray and Erza had suggested when the prior Christmas when she had been struggling to figure it out. She usually got people things that they could either incorporate into their magic or had to do with their magic, such as the sculptures she was getting for Gray or the books for Rogue that were on dragon slayer magic. However, she knew that Bickslow didn’t read so a book on his magic wouldn’t be a good gift and he had such a rare magic that there wasn’t anything in Crocus related to it.   
“You know, he’ll love anything you get him. Bicks will be happy enough with the fact that you were thinking about him.” Laxus honestly didn’t think he could help Lucy with her goal, but he wasn’t going to give up just because he couldn’t think of anything either. He wanted to see the smile on Lucy’s face when her friends opened their gifts, but he wouldn’t get that if they couldn’t find the perfect gift for Bickslow.   
After the two finished lunch, they continued their search. After passing various gift shops, Laxus could tell that Lucy was about to give up so he steered her toward a jewelry shop where he hoped they could find something for the seith mage. There, Lucy found various pieces of jewelry that she felt would compliment Bickslow’s typical wardrobe well and purchased them without a second thought. 

When Laxus and Lucy returned to the inn, they found that most of the group had moved into Sting and Rogue’s room and were idly chatting. Lucy decided she was going to set her bags down in her room before joining everyone. She would give Gray and Bickslow their gifts before they all parted ways in Magnolia, but for now, she just wanted to enjoy the time she had with them all before they left in the morning. She grabbed the gift-wrapped book and opened her door, turning around to step into the hallway just in time to almost run into Erza as the Requip mage went to knock on her door.   
“Lucy…” Erza felt ashamed of herself and struggled to look at the vibrant blonde she knew as her friend. The redhead took a deep breath before looking up to the smiling celestial mage.   
“I said something to you that I should have never said. You are a strong mage, an intelligent woman and a wonderful friend Lucy. You belong with Fairy Tail, with our team, and I was wrong to take out my frustration out on you that day. I’m sorry I let my emotions get the better of me, and I’m sorry I made you feel like anyone in our team or our guild doubted your abilities. It will never happen again. Please, accept this gift along with my apologies.” Erza didn’t have the time to wrap the gift, knowing that if she had taken the time to make the wrapping perfect she wouldn’t have the courage needed to give the apology Lucy deserved. Still, she held out the snowglobe she had found, the inside appearing to be more like a night sky with the twelve zodiac constellations appearing when magic energy was added. The moment she saw it, Erza knew that she needed to get it for Lucy. She watched as the blonde’s eyes lit up and she grabbed it. After a moment of seeing which constellation she would get first, Lucy pulled the Requip mage into a hug.   
“I love it, thank you Erza. I forgive you, but I can’t forget what you said. It hurt, I thought you guys thought better of me than that, you especially. But I know you didn’t truly mean it. Words spoken in anger aren’t always true but they cut deeper than we mean for them to. Now come on, everyone’s gathered in Sting and Rogue’s room.” Lucy grabbed Erza’s hand and, with Rogue’s present and her own in hand, she dragged the Requip mage down the hall to the twin dragon’s room.   
When the two entered the room, it was to laughter and chatter. The subject matter seemed to be a kiss that happened between Gray and Natsu during the battle that Erza and Rufus had seen, the memory mage spilling the beans when Bickslow commented on how close the two were sitting. Lucy jumped straight into the conversation as she sat down in between Rogue and Bickslow, and right in front of Laxus. The lightning dragon seemed more than content to watch the celestial mage’s back while she talked animatedly with their friends, congratulating her two teammates on their relationship while still teasing them for keeping it a secret. Lucy, Bickslow, and Happy were a force to be reckoned with when they all got to tease Natsu on how much he was blushing but Erza knew that the exceed and celestial mage were happy for their friend and that it was all in good fun. Maybe it was a bit of payback for all the times Natsu had insulted Lucy’s weight over the past few years, but the Requip mage could tell that the blonde was still happy for the fire and ice mages. Lucy took the news better than any of them expected her to.   
Everyone in Fairy Tail had thought that Lucy and Natsu would end up together. The two were always together and she always seemed extremely happy when in his presence. Erza hadn’t even been aware that Gray had any sort of interest in Natsu in anything other than a friendly rival until she had seen him kiss the fire dragon.   
Throughout the evening, Erza watched as the blonde showed Yukino the snowglobe and the two gushed over their spirits, dragging Laxus and Orga into the conversation when the two seemed to get too close. Wendy ended up in a corner talking to Rufus, Evergreen, and Freed about a book she was reading and what she should read afterward to continue her research on better healing magic. Gray and Natsu stayed close together but carried on conversations with Bickslow and Sting separately. That was when she realized, she knew very little about her teammates as people. Even the exceeds were having their own conversations.   
“Sometimes it takes time away from your friends to realize how little you know about them,” Rogue stated from behind her. Erza thought he had been reading the book that Lucy had given to him earlier in the evening, a get well present in the celestial mage’s words, but apparently, he had been watching her as she watched her team. When the Requip mage turned to look at the shadow dragon, she noticed that he hadn’t even opened the book that rested by his side.   
“Your words hurt Lucy, and I’ll admit it made Sting and I want to track you down and hurt you just as bad. The only reason we didn’t, is because it may have driven her into the arms of her mate. It seems, this even already helped Natsu and Gray realize they were meant to be together, so if this also helps Lucy realize that Natsu wasn’t meant for her and that she was meant for someone else then I can forgive you.”  
“I don’t understand…?” Erza was extremely confused over what Rogue was saying. Looking around, she realized that no one was paying attention to the two of them, even though she knew that every one of the dragon slayers could hear them.   
“Dragons, and the slayers they raised and trained, have mates. The one person in the world that is perfect for them that will stay by their side no matter what. Sometimes, we can know that person for years before realizing who they are to us, and sometimes it hit us as soon as we meet them. Sting thought that Lucy could have been his mate when he first met her, well after he first actually had a conversation with her, but he assumed that she had been mated to Natsu already since the two were always together so much. I’ll be honest, even I was disappointed by that when I realized that she still smelled like Natsu even when he wasn’t around her. But we both decided she was better off being a sister to us than a mate since we would have had to figure out how to make the distance between us work being in different guilds. We’ve claimed her as kin and neither of us would willingly let her get hurt. I think our inner dragons knew that she was meant to be our kin and that she didn’t belong with Natsu so we needed to get her to realize it sooner rather than later as well.” Rogue didn’t realize he was rambling until he looked up and realized Erza was staring at the blonde celestial mage with wide eyes. The blonde had laid her head on Laxus’s shoulder and was practically cuddled into him as she listened to Yukino talk about something one of her spirits had done.   
“But...Lucy isn’t a dragon. How can she have a mate?” Erza asked after a few minutes, finally shifting her gaze back to Rogue.   
“She’s been claimed as kin by at least three dragons. Possibly four. I’m not sure if Natsu has claimed her as kin or if he even knows how to. But I am almost certain that Laxus is her mate, he just needs to get the courage to tell her himself.” Rogue knew the look that the lightning dragon was giving his kin. It was one filled with a raw desire but not of the sexual kind. While the shadow dragon wouldn’t be surprised if Laxus was sexually attracted to the blonde celestial mage, it seemed the lightning dragon wanted to get to know her better before even bringing up the idea of mating to her. And as much as it pained him to admit, Lucy deserved all that Laxus was doing for her. She deserved someone who was putting her best interest ahead of his own needs.   
“So Gray and Natsu are…” Erza trailed off, looking at the two men she considered brothers for so much of her life. It was a lot to take in, but looking at them, the redhead could see why they belonged together. They balanced each other out well, not only with their opposite magic but with their personalities.   
“Are mates, yes. Wendy will have a mate as well when she gets a bit older, just like every other dragon slayer either already does or will.” Rogue explained, his own gaze moving to the youngest of the dragon slayers. He almost feared for the day when the sky dragon found her mate, the poor person would have to deal with how protective her family was of her. Of course, Rogue and Sting, while being protective, knew how important a mate was to a dragon and didn’t plan on intervening with the process.   
Rogue left Erza to process the information he had given her and decided to pick up the book Lucy had given him, pleased to see that it was on shadow magic and different ways to incorporate his magic into various fight techniques. 

In the morning, the Sabertooth mages bid the Fairy Tail mages goodbye as they boarded their train to return to Magnolia. Lucy had promised to visit soon when Yukino expressed her desire to see the other celestial mage more often.   
The Fairy Tail group took up most of an entire car with how many of them there were but since they had taken the earliest trip they could get out there weren’t too many people on board the train as it was so it was a relatively quiet trip.


	14. Chapter 14

Erza knew she needed to give her teammates time to themselves. Gray and Natsu were taking more jobs by themselves so they could get as much time together as they could, and since Lucy had started being invited on more jobs with Laxus and the Raijinshū it hadn’t seemed like a problem. Even Wendy had been spending more time studying and training rather than taking jobs. Of course, in the month that had passed since their return from Crocus, the group had taken jobs together, just not as often.   
Erza started taking more jobs by herself just to keep the feelings of being abandoned by her team at bay. It hurt every time she walked into the guild hall only to find out that the people she called her closest friends had left for another job or were too busy to even greet her. A part of her felt that she deserved this for how harshly she had treated Lucy only a month and a half ago.   
On her most recent job, Erza had learned where Crime Sorciere was headed and decided that she was going to head there after she returned from her job. Erza couldn’t leave before checking in with the Master, doing so would probably only cause him to send her team after her. For what she needed to do, what she wanted to do, she couldn’t let them get in her way.   
Erza found, as she thought hard on why she was doing what she was, that she had no idea where her thoughts were coming from. Never before had she been upset with her guildmates to the point where she needed to leave them. Nor had she felt they were abandoning her simply because they were moving on with their lives. Maybe that was why she was seeking out Jellal and Crime Sorciere, as a way for her to return to something comfortable and nostalgic. Not that returning to her childhood friend would make her feel any better, as her own mind screamed at her to release him from the pain of the world they lived in. Whatever was making her think such thoughts refused to give her a break as she tried to fight off the horrible thoughts. That was what had truly terrified her enough to leave the guild.   
After she checked in with Master Makarov, she informed him that she wanted to spend some time away from the guild. The redhead didn’t mention that her plan was to completely sever ties with the guild until she was ready to return but she knew that if she did Makarov wouldn’t allow her to leave.   
Finally, she collected her things from her place in Fairy Hills and set out on the road. When she got far enough away from Magnolia, she used her magic to erase the Fairy Tail guild mark from her arm. 

Laxus knew that he was being selfish by asking Lucy to keep coming with him and the Raijinshū on their jobs. He was keeping her from her own team but he wanted to spend more time with her, as much time as he could, and the fact that she continued to agree told him that she wanted to spend just as much time with him and his team. Lucy had told him that everyone on her team was doing their own thing for a while, and only taking jobs together when they were all in the guild at the same time.   
Apparently, Gray and Natsu were taking as many jobs as they could together while Wendy worked on expanding her healing capabilities. Erza was taking jobs on her own which left Lucy to do as she pleased. That was more than enough reason for Laxus to not feel bad about wanting to get to know his hopefully soon-to-be mate better.   
“How do you like working with the Raijinshū, Cosplayer?” Bickslow asked as the group made their way back to the guildhall. Their last job had been rather easy considering between Freed and Lucy there was little need for a planning stage. As soon as the two heard the details of the job, they had gotten together and created a strategy for the team to use. Everything worked according to their plan and they had finished the job in record time.   
“You guys are awesome and can follow a plan so much better than Natsu and Gray can.” Lucy definitely couldn’t complain about how easy it was to work with the Raijinshū as well as the money she was making with them. She had enough money to pay her rent for the month as well as save enough for the next month or so. She did miss her team but she enjoyed her time with the Raijinshū and with Laxus. 

As the group entered the guildhall, Lucy noticed a sight that seemed to be common to her now. Gray, Happy, and Natsu were nowhere to be seen, Wendy was at one of the tables reading a book, and Cara was sitting next to the young dragon slayer sipping at a cup of tea and watching over her. Lucy smiled at Mira as the barmaid greeted her and walked with the rest of the Raijinshū up the stairs to the Master’s office to give their report.   
Makarov seemed proud of their accomplishment, and he had even stated how happy he was that Lucy was going on jobs with Laxus and the Raijinshū rather than staying with just her regular team, but even the celestial mage could tell that there was something weighing on the master’s mind.   
“Lucy, may I speak to you, child?” Makarov asked once the Raijinshū finished their report. Lucy blinked in confusion but nodded still. Laxus and the rest of the Raijinshū left after thanking her for her assistance and closed the door behind them, yet Laxus didn’t go very far from the door. He had a bad feeling about what his grandfather wanted to talk to the blonde celestial mage about. 

“Erza came to see me earlier this morning.” Makarov started once the Raijinshū left his office. He knew that he could have given this information to Lucy while they were still in the room, that Laxus would have been willing to help the Requip mage with whatever was weighing on her heart just as she had done those years ago when Laxus had tried to take over the guild, but Lucy was Erza’s teammate.   
“Erza is leaving Fairy Tail for a while but I fear that she is taking on a burden too heavy for her heart to bare. She told me that she didn’t want to leave Fairy Tail permanently but I have a bad feeling about the look in her eye when she spoke with me. I am curious to know if anything has happened between your team since you have stopped taking as many jobs together.” The splitting of their team was not lost on the elder master, but he had hoped it would have done everyone well. It seemed that Erza was the only one who wasn’t taking the split well.   
“We haven’t had a falling out or anything of that sort if that’s what you’re worried about Master. We just...we all have different ambitions and taking jobs as a team isn’t quite helpful to each of us. I know Gray and Natsu want to spend more time together and I know that they aren’t as comfortable when we are on jobs as a team because they think we will...I don’t know...tease them I guess for their relationship? And Wendy wants to practice her healing magic more before she has to use it which she can’t do as much when she’s on a job so I started taking more jobs with Laxus. I didn’t know Erza wasn’t happy about the arrangement or else I’d have gone on more jobs with her instead of the Raijinshū.” Lucy couldn’t help but feel bad for not realizing how unhappy her friend was. She had promised to not let her friends feel how terrible she had felt after Erza had made her feel like she didn’t belong in Fairy Tail, and yet she had been so focused on her feelings for Laxus and her desire to keep working with his team that she had ignored her own friends.   
“Then I suppose it can’t be helped. We will have to wait and see what she will do.” Makarov had no idea where Erza was even headed let alone how to go about looking for her.   
“No, I’m going to look for her. Chances are if she feels like we’ve abandoned her she will go to someone who hasn’t yet. And I have a pretty good idea where Crime Sorciere is heading to next in their search for Zeref.” Lucy refused to leave her friend to deal with whatever she was dealing with by herself and would be there for her even if Erza didn’t want her to be. Without another word to her Guildmaster, Lucy turned and left the room. Laxus and the Raijinshū were waiting by the stairs when she walked out and she couldn’t help but smile at them.   
“I’m going to search for Erza. I think Wendy could use a bit of an adventure too. I probably won’t be around for any jobs for a bit.” She said the words so lightly but each of the mages in front of her could see that Lucy was serious in the matter. None of them were going to stop her from what she planned on doing, even if they still hadn’t fully forgiven Erza for what she had said to the blonde celestial mage.   
“We’ll be here for you when you get back, Lucy.” Freed stated with a gentle smile as he saw the determined look on her face. She smiled at them all and hugged them before walking past them. They watched as she approached the smallest dragon slayer and informed her of what she had just been told. Wendy seemed just as determined to help as Lucy and the two immediately packed up Wendy’s books. They were running out of the guildhall doors in a matter of minutes.  
“Boss, I don’t like the idea of the two of them going off on their own. I know cosplayer is strong and munchkin is too but something doesn’t feel right.” Bickslow stated once the guildhall doors were shut.   
“I agree. Will you follow them and make sure they’re safe?” The last thing Laxus wanted was for Lucy and Wendy to get hurt on whatever crazy mission they were on. Bickslow didn’t bother answering as he left the guildhall to follow the woman he had come to love as a sister and the young dragon slayer he had hoped to get to know better if she ever stopped hiding herself away in her studies as Freed and Levy did. The thought almost made him laugh; Wendy was so much like the rune mage and solid script mage when it came to studying that he was surprised she didn’t spend more time with them. She could have learned a lot from them if she did and the seith mage was sure she would have enjoyed the conversations the two had when they got together.   
Bickslow caught sight of the two mages as they left Wendy’s apartment in Fairy Hills and began making their way to Lucy’s apartment. Deciding that he needed to change out his old clothes from their last job with some fresh ones, Bickslow kept one of his babies following Lucy and Wendy while he took a detour to his own home. Gods knew how long this would take and with Lucy, who was a trouble magnet, the last thing he needed was to be unprepared. 

Gray and Natsu didn’t expect their job to take as long as it had so when they had returned to the guildhall three days after Lucy and Wendy departed, they were exhausted. Both had decided it was best to check in with the guild before heading home to sleep, and to see how the other members of their team were doing since neither of them could remember the last time they had talked to the three women. It was a shock when the walked into the guild to find all three were missing. Not so much that Erza and Lucy were gone, as the two were often away on jobs, but the fact that Wendy was also gone had worried the dragon slayer and his mate. It worried the two even more when they realized Laxus, Freed, and Evergreen were still at the guildhall.   
“Blondie and Munchkin went to go look for Erza. Apparently, Titania decided she needed a break from the guild and went off on her own. Gramps had a bad feeling about it.” Laxus explained when Natsu demanded to know where their teammates were. Gray sighed and immediately began to pull Natsu towards the door.   
“Where do you think you two are going?” Freed asked when he realized that the three no longer had Natsu or Gray’s attention.   
“To go find our team. Lucy and Wendy need our help I’m sure.” Gray stated with an aura of annoyance tinting his voice.   
“Bickslow’s with them. There’s no need for you guys to waste your time or energy looking for them. And besides, since you haven’t been around to notice, Blondie has gotten pretty strong without you guys holding her back. Wendy needs the practice in her healing magic as well and you guys would probably hold her back in that too with how intimidating you are when you’re angry.” Laxus stated, jumping down from the second floor to stop the two mages from continuing their path. “You both need to rest. You look like shit. You wouldn’t be any use to them.”   
“What did you just say!?!” Gray shouted, offended as he pushed Natsu away from the lightning slayer. The ice mage didn’t know what he was more annoyed about, Laxus stating the two were holding their friends back from advancing their magic or how bad they looked in that current moment. He almost felt like he was fighting with Natsu all over again, but it was different. Laxus could kill him if he wanted to, it wouldn’t take much on the lightning dragon’s part at all.   
“Go home, Gray. Sleep, eat something, then come and tell me you want to go after your team. I may believe it then.” Laxus growled, shoving the ice mage away. It was Natsu who stopped Gray from retaliating, grabbing his hand and pulling him close. Natsu hated seeing Gray so close to another dragon slayer, even if he knew that it was just because Laxus was trying to knock some sense into them both, and Gray was on edge because he was tired and low on magic. Really, he just wanted to go home and cuddle with the ice mage but the fact that his friends were missing would keep that from happening.   
“He’s right. We should have been back sooner. We’re in no condition to go after the girls right now. We need to sleep some and recover our magic before we even think about looking for them. Come on Gray, let’s go home.” Gray sighed but allowed Natsu to pull him around the blond slayer and towards the door. He couldn’t argue with Natsu, even if he did think they should have gone after Lucy and Wendy instead of gone home. Maybe they did look a little worse for wear.


	15. Chapter 15

Lucy took a few kilometers before she noticed they were being followed. She was only mildly annoyed when she realized it was Bickslow following them. Mildly being the keyword. Part of her wanted to be upset that her friends didn’t trust her enough to allow her and Wendy to go out on their own alone, but she was thankful that they cared enough to send anyone out after the two young women.  
“You can tag along but don’t think I’m not going to have a talk with Laxus about his decision to send you without even asking me first. I’m starting to get the impression everyone in Fairy Tail thinks I’m incapable of handling myself.” Lucy knew that she had a bad habit of letting her team handle jobs for her rather than take control of the situations when she could, but that didn’t mean she was completely incapable of taking care of herself. The last thing she needed was for the people she was beginning to become friends with to think she was as weak as her team seemed to believe she was.  
“It’s not that we think you can’t handle yourself, Cosplayer. We want you to be safe at all times so we can continue to see that bright smile of yours. Laxus knew there would be no stopping you from doing this even if he tried so he asked me to follow you since he wasn’t sure what exactly kind of mindset Erza would be in when you found her. You can never be too safe Cosplayer.” Bickslow had done his best to prepare himself for Angry Lucy, who was a completely different person than regular Lucy, but this was far from what he had expected to get.  
“Maybe not, but I can sure feel too smothered by how many dragon slayers seem to want me surrounded at all times…” Lucy muttered the last comment to herself as she turned away from Bickslow and continued on her path.  
“It’s because we care about you, Lucy. You are kin to us and we take that very seriously.” Wendy replied as she rushed to catch up to the older woman. The youngest dragon slayer had immediately taken the celestial mage on as her kin as soon as she realized she could do so, followed by Erza as soon as the redhead mage returned from the job she had been on. The strain between Lucy and Erza had hurt Wendy most of all because, unlike Gajeel and Natsu, she didn’t have a mate to distract herself with and Carla hadn’t been much help when she had asked the exceed for advice on how to help the two reconcile. Lucy didn’t realize just how much of a strain the entire thing was putting on the young girl otherwise she would have made a more conscious effort to get the team back together, or at least help her through it more.  
“Laxus cares about you Cosplayer, we all do. If he hadn’t thought that you would have gutted him for showing up, he would come here himself but he felt it was best to stay behind. Any one of us would have come after you to keep you safe though, even Evergreen would have figured out how long she could tail you before you realized you were being followed.” Bickslow may not have been making his case any better, and he realized it when Lucy shot him a harsh glare. He gave her a cheesy smile but followed after her. He decided to drop the subject for the remainder of the afternoon and evening as he followed Lucy and Wendy. 

“Can I ask you something Cosplayer?” The seith mage asked as they were setting up camp later that evening. Wendy was with Virgo cooking dinner while the two elder mages set the tents up, but at the request, the young dragon slayer looked up at them in curiosity.  
“Hm?” Lucy was focused on her task but paused to give her attention to the taller man.  
“Why are you going through so much for Erza? Why not just let Natsu and Gray go after her like you know they would have as soon as they got home?” Everyone in the guild knew that Natsu had a reputation of chasing after his friends when they came up missing, and it helped that he had a nose that could sniff people out easier than anyone else in the guild.  
“Erza is my friend, my nakama, and my family. When Phantom Lord attacked and my father tried to have me kidnapped, all of Fairy Tail stood up for me even though I hadn’t been there long. Erza refused to stand down and let them take me even though they were harming people she had known a lot longer than me. And when I returned to my father to set things straight, to let him know that I wasn’t going to return to him so he could marry me off like he had wanted to, Erza was right next to Gray and Natsu to bring me home when they thought I had given up on my dream. If I were to leave this to Gray and Natsu, what kind of friend would I be? How could I call her my family and my nakama?” Lucy had dropped the pole to the tent she had been holding and was staring at the ground as she spoke. “The answer is that I couldn’t. It doesn’t matter how she may have hurt me in the past, Erza is still my nakama. Still my family. And I will be there for her in her time of need even if she doesn’t want me there because that’s what family does.”  
Lucy’s speech put a smile on both mage’s faces as well as the spirit helping them and Bickslow couldn’t stop the way his tongue rolled out of his lips in his excitement. He had never heard the blonde give as heartwarming of a speech like that, maybe he had expected it from Natsu but not from Lucy, and it lit a determined fire inside of him. 

It was early the next morning when Makarov was called out from his office by his grandson. Usually, if Laxus needed him, the dragon slayer would have just entered his office and bugged him but this time his voice sounded urgent. As soon as the short master left his office and looked down at the ground floor of the Guildhall below, he realized just why Laxus had been so anxious to get him out there. Standing in the middle of the Guildhall was Lahar and Doranbolt of the Magic Council.  
“What can Fairy Tail do for the Magic Council this morning, gentlemen?” Makarov asked as he descended the steps to the first floor of the Guildhall. After years of dealing with the Magic Council as Guildmaster, Makarov had grown used to how to properly string his words together in order to keep from offending or annoying any member of the Council, regardless of how uneased he felt having two members of the Custody Enforcement standing in his Guildhall.  
“We have come to speak with you about one of the mages we arrested last month in association with Inferno Eclipse.” Lahar replied while keeping his expression and tone neutral. He noticed how the mention of the dark guild had caused many members of Fairy Tail to tense up, and since he hadn’t been on the scene for the fight he wasn’t aware of just what Fairy Tail had gone through in regards to putting a stop to the guild in question. He returned his attention to the older guildmaster when the short man cleared his throat loudly and motioned for him to follow him. Makarov led the two men up to his office.  
“Don’t tell me that any of the mages from Inferno Eclipse have escaped again. If so, it’s on the Magic Council this time, not Fairy Tail.” Makarov had admitted that his mages had rushed into the fight and hadn’t cleared the area around them the first time, therefore the fact that they had let many of the dark guild mages escape was on Fairy Tail. This time, if any of the dark mages escaped it was on the Magic Council.  
“No, each of them is securely locked up and have been interrogated properly as protocol requires. That’s why we are here.” Lahar hated having to ask for help, even less so when it was Fairy Tail he was asking but the orders came from high up in the Council.  
“One of the mages helped your mages find and take down the guildmaster. When we interrogated her, we found out that she and her older sister were tricked into joining the guild and had never wanted to be there. Along with that…” Doranbolt paused as he tried to figure out the best way to explain just why the two were there. He knew that Lahar wouldn’t, not without dragging it out as much as he could and making the entire meeting much worse for them all. “The mage in question is apparently a dragon slayer as well. And not a second generation like your grandson and the dark mage Cobra. She claims to have been taught by a dragon before the dragon disappeared and left her and her sister alone. Her older sister backs up her story down to every detail.”  
Makarov frowned and cast his gaze downward as he thought over what he was just told. Having another dragon slayer in the world was potentially dangerous, but from what Evergreen had reported, if this was the same mage who had helped her, Rogue, Yukino, and Sting when they were taking care of Rogue’s injury then she must not have had a dark heart like most mages who joined dark guilds.  
“And you want to know if Fairy Tail would take her in, am I correct? You have no other reason to tell me such information if you didn’t.” Taking the girl in would make his guild more powerful, and could cause an uproar with the rest of the guilds around Fiore if they found out that the Magic Council had asked Makarov to do this for them. “Why not contact Sting in Sabertooth?”  
“The girl is highly untrained other than her training with her dragon. According to her sister, she is barely able to use a dragon’s roar let alone the rest of her dragon slayer magic. The seated members of the Council wish for your dragon slayers to train her. If you wish to contact Sabertooth’s Guildmaster you are more than welcome to, however, the Magic Council does not want her to leave the sights of a dragon slayer for long until she has proven she can be trusted.” Lahar answered, his tone indicating how unhappy he was to be there. Doranbolt said nothing about the last condition being false, as he had already cleared her of any wrongdoing, and patiently waited for the Guildmaster’s response.  
Makarov stood and walked to his office door. After opening it, he called for the three dragon slayers currently in the Guildhall. It didn’t take long for the three men to walk in and settle around the room.  
“Laxus, Natsu, Gajeel, as the only dragon slayers present at the moment I must ask for your opinion before I accept or decline this request from the Magic Council.” Makarov knew he was in no position to agree or decline on behalf of the people who would be the ones to do the actual training, and as such he told the three the exact information Lahar and Doranbolt had just given him about the dragon slayer they had discovered amongst the Inferno Eclipse mages and the request from the seated members of the Magic Council.  
“I think we should take her in Gramps. On one condition, however. If we take in this dragon slayer, you have to release her sister into our custody as well.” Laxus spoke up first, causing both Natsu and Gajeel to snap their gazes to him. Out of all of the people in the guild, Laxus was the last person they expected to make such a request. Granted, both of them would have done the same thing if he hadn’t.  
“There you have it. If you want Fairy Tail to take the dragon slayer in you have to release her as well as her sister into our custody.” Makarov reiterated when the two Magic Council members stared at the blond dragon slayer in surprise. With a nod, Doranbolt led his associate out of the office and out of the Guildhall in silence. They could accept those terms, especially since Lahar had added his own terms to the deal as well. 

As soon as the Council members were out of the Guildhall, Makarov wrote a letter to Sting and Rogue detailing the meeting he just had and asking if the two would like to help, as well as adding in the conditions that apply to both the guild as well as the Magic Council in the arrangement. When he was done, he sealed it and asked Happy to fly it to the Sabertooth guildhall personally.  
“You were quick to insist her sister come with her, Laxus.” Gajeel noted as the three dragon slayers left Makarov’s office once the blue exceed had left. Laxus grunted in reply before looking back at the iron dragon.  
“Family shouldn’t be split up just because they were forced into something. If the dragon slayer gets a second chance then her sister should too.” If someone like Laxus could get a second chance then why couldn’t these two? The last thing he was going to do was stand by and let the two be separated when they probably hadn’t been apart from each other their entire lives. Not when family was such a huge part of what Fairy Tail was about.  
“I’m going to call Bicks. I promised to keep him updated on anything that happened at the guild so Lucy could stay informed. I know she and Wendy will want to know about this.” With that, Laxus broke away from the other two and moved to the communication Lacrima that would connect him with Bickslow.

Happy flew as fast as he could to get to Sabertooth’s Guildhall. He knew the letter he had in his sack was important; so important, in fact, that he hadn’t even packed a fish to keep the letter safe and clean so that Sting could read it properly. By the time he landed on the steps in front of the Guildhall, Happy was hungry and tired but he refused to let that get the better of him as he moved up the steps and opened the door.  
“Yukino!” He called out to the silver-haired celestial mage when he saw her walk past the bar. She stopped to look at him in surprise, also catching Sting and Rogue’s attention as well. The guild master and his best friend were sitting at the bar going over new additions they had wanted to make to the Guildhall when the blue exceed had barged in through the doors.  
“Happy? Did something happen? Are Natsu and the others okay?” Yukino asked as she bent down to pick up the small exceed. Happy nodded as he wiggled in her arms slightly so he could pull the letter out of his sack.  
“Master Makarov sent me to give this to Sting. He said it was important but didn’t tell me what was in it.” Sting took the letter from Happy and ripped it open immediately. He read it quickly and as he did, his frown deepened. The contents were more than enough to upset him and he had to do his best not to growl as he read through the letter once more. The girl who had hurt his best friend, who had turned around and help them in the end, was a dragon slayer and Fairy Tail was taking her in. Not only that, they were asking for his and Rogue’s help in training her to become a better dragon slayer. It was enough to piss him off.  
“Sting?” Rogue asked, moving to his friend’s side to read over his shoulder. Sting gave the letter to the shadow dragon and sighed. He knew that Happy didn’t know what the letter was about, but that didn’t make the subject any easier.  
“If what Makarov said is right, then we need to go. She needs training and it wouldn’t be fair to leave it all to Fairy Tail.” Rogue knew exactly where Sting’s mind was after reading the letter and he knew that as much as he wanted to blame the dragon slayer and her sister, they weren’t at fault for his injury. The scar still hurt and any time Sting saw the pain on Rogue’s face he grew angry at them. “We have a duty as dragon slayers to help those in need and this girl obviously is in need.”  
“Fro thinks so too!” Frosch stated, flying up behind Rogue, even though the exceed had no idea what was going on. Rogue smiled at his longtime friend before turning back to his best friend.  
“I suppose you’re right…” Sting didn’t like the idea but he knew that Rogue had a point and he would be a terrible guildmaster if he didn’t agree to help his friends when they asked for it. It was the least he could do after Fairy Tail had helped them get Sabertooth reformed into a guild everyone could be proud of. That didn’t stop the fact that he wanted to be angry, to scream and shout that it wasn’t fair to train the train the very person who had harmed his best friend. The fact that Rogue was right didn’t stop Sting from wanting to say no to Fairy Tail. 

In the end, Rogue hadn’t let Sting say no and the two were on their way to Magnolia to meet with Makarov to discuss the new dragon slayer. Since she wasn’t to be delivered to the Fairy Tail guildhall until the following afternoon, the two dragon slayers and their exceeds could take the train to reach Magnolia. Sting didn’t get much time to complain before the train started moving and his motion sickness kicked in, causing him to immediately try and reel in his desire to empty his stomach all over the floor. Rogue would have found it amusing, had he not felt the exact same way.  
When the train ride was over, the group recollected themselves and made their way to the Fairy Tail guildhall in silence, with Happy leading the way. The Sabertooth dragons were greeted by Natsu the moment they walked into the building.  
“Master Sting, I’m glad you could make it!” Makarov called from the second-floor railing once he saw the two dragon slayers enter. The older guildmaster missed the cringe Sting gave at being called ‘master’ but Rogue saw it and offered a short laugh before moving away with Lector and Frosch. Sting sighed and began making his way to the stairs so he could talk with Makarov about what they planned on doing with the dragon slayer’s training. 

Rogue followed Natsu and Happy to the bar where Mira asked him if he wanted anything to drink or eat. Just as he was about to decline, Natsu ordered some drink for himself and Happy and Frosch asked for chocolate milk, which was the green exceed’s favorite drink of all time. Lector had followed it up by asking for a slice of cake, or anything sweet the barmaid may have had in the kitchen. When Mira looked at the shadow dragon expectantly, he asked for herbal tea with a bit of honey.  
“If it isn’t too much trouble of course. These two are used to the way Sabertooth runs the kitchen and bar but I don’t expect Fairy Tail to cater to us the same way.” He added before Mira could walk away to complete the orders. Mira smiled at him before shooing him towards the table Natsu had walked over towards.  
“I will bring your orders over to you when it’s ready. Now go sit and relax. I know how long of a trip it is from your guildhall to here.” Mira didn’t give Rogue time to argue before she walked into the kitchen to search for the sweet item Lector had asked for.  
Rogue moved to the table Natsu was sitting at with Gajeel, Gray and another of the Fairy Tail members, one he didn’t recognize off hand though he felt he should have, and took a seat next to Natsu. Looking around he noticed that key members of Natsu’s team were gone, specifically Lucy and Wendy. Given that he saw most of the members of the Raijinshū and could smell Laxus upstairs with Sting and Makarov, Lucy wasn’t out with them, so where was she?  
“Where are Wendy and Lucy? I expected Wendy would want to be here for something like this and Lucy doesn’t usually stray too far from you guys or the Raijinshū.” Rogue asked curiously, looking between Gajeel and Natsu. Natsu puffed his cheeks out in annoyance which caused Gray and Gajeel to laugh.  
“Lu and Wendy went to go look for Erza. Apparently, she left Fairy Tail yesterday morning and it has the Master worried about her.” The other girl, whose name Rogue still didn’t know, replied as she giggled at the look on Natsu’s face.  
“Salamander isn’t too happy about being left behind.” Gajeel added on with his own laugh. “Rogue I don’t think you’ve met Levy before. Levy is my mate. Lev, this is Rogue.”  
“It’s nice to officially meet you, Rogue. Lu and Gajeel have told me a lot about you.” Levy extended her hand out to the shadow dragon, who took it and gave it a small shake before pulling away. He had been aware that Gajeel had mated, been told by Lucy that he had, but this was the first time he had met the woman. He could see now, why she fit so well with Gajeel and it made him happy to see the person he had seen as a rival and a brother was happy.  
“This is Frosch and Lector.” He introduced as the two exceeds stared between him and the group quietly. Usually, Lector had no problem jumping into conversations and introducing himself but he seemed to be shy in front of so many dragon slayers and their mates. It was almost amusing to the shadow dragon. Rogue was used to having to introduce Frosch to people as the green exceed was shy towards new people often.  
“Hello Lector, Frosch. You two are more adorable than Happy and Carla, you know? Maybe even Lily.” Levy commented as she leaned over the table to gush over the two exceeds. She ignored the complaints coming from Happy and Gajeel at the underhanded insult as she talked to Lector and Frosch. Rogue smiled as he watched the encounter. This was a break that he and Sting needed, even if it would still be work on them. Getting away from their guild was a good thing sometimes. 

When Sting walked into Makarov’s office he noticed Laxus was already in there waiting for them. He nodded to the lightning slayer and took a seat next to him, opposite of Makarov.  
“I know that I can’t pull you or Rogue from Sabertooth for too long but I would like to have your help with this girl. As I’m sure you know, an untrained or improperly trained dragon slayer is more dangerous than a dark dragon slayer.” Makarov started to say before Sting stopped him.  
“Listen, I’m pretty sure it was either the dragon slayer or her sister or friend or whoever she is that wounded Rogue during that battle and the last thing I want to do is spend time with them and train them...but I left it up to Rogue and he made a valid point that I can’t deny. As dragon slayers, it is our job to help those in need, even more so if it’s another dragon slayer in need. Even if I don’t like it, I will do it because it’s what I must do.” Makarov smiled at the conviction he saw in Sting as he nodded his agreement. The three figured out the best way for Sting and Rogue to help with the training, before deciding that after the training was finished and all six dragon slayers involved decided she was ready, the two would be allowed to join either Sabertooth or Fairy Tail. Laxus left to once again call Bickslow to update him on the new information so he could keep Wendy updated while Sting bid Makarov a goodbye and left the office so he could join his friends downstairs. He paused at the stairs when he saw Rogue, Frosch, and Lector with Gajeel, Natsu, Gray, and who he assumed was Gajeel’s mate. A smile spread across his face when he realized that Lector was letting the small woman hold him while the group chatted. He descended the stairs quickly so he could join his friends, happy to be around other dragon slayers besides just Rogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for how long it's taking me to get these chapters out, I'm going through a lot in my personal life that's keeping me from editing what I have already written as well as writing more. I'm hoping I can write more over the summer when things start to slow down a bit so bear with me a bit longer.


	16. Chapter 16

Erza was moving as quickly as she could to find Jellal and Meredy. The two remaining members of Crime Sorciere had been diligent in their search for any and all traces of Zeref and when Erza had heard where they were next headed she knew that she needed to cut them off before they got there. She needed to save Jellal from the pain he was about to endure and there was only one way to do that. His death.  
The moment she sensed their magic she slowed down. Coming up on them too fast would have alerted them and she didn’t need that. Erza didn’t want the two mages to question why she was there before she lost her nerve to do what she must to save the man she loved. If she allowed Jellal to go after Zeref any longer all he would accomplish was heartbreak and pain. When she pushed through the bushes, she found the two mages had come to a stop and were waiting for her.   
“Erza?” Jellal asked cautiously, almost as if he wasn’t sure it was really her. Usually, he was more aware of where Erza was going to be and if their paths were going to cross so that he could prepare for it, just as he knew she kept tabs on him. He gasped when he caught sight of her arm and realized that the guild mark he had grown used to seeing on her arm was now gone. “What happened to your guild mark? Did you leave Fairy Tail?”   
Erza didn’t give Jellal a verbal response as she requipped into her Heaven’s Wheel armor and immediately started attacking him. Meredy tried to help Jellal out before he screamed at her to stay out of the way of Erza’s attacks. The Heavenly Body mage knew something was wrong with the woman he loved but he wasn’t sure what it was and until he knew he didn’t want his comrade in danger of getting harmed. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop Erza, he learned that back at the Tower of Heaven all those years ago, but he could at least slow her down.   
Meredy immediately pulled out her communication lacrima and called Fairy Tail’s guildmaster. The short man wasn’t surprised to hear that the two mages had run into Erza and had asked for their location so he could redirect the team he had searching for her to them. She gave them the best location description she could while keeping an eye on the two lovers fighting. Meredy made it a point to stress to Makarov how important it was for his team to get there as quick as they could, as she watched Erza strike out at Jellal with killing intent. 

Bickslow wasn’t expecting to receive so many calls from Laxus in one day. He knew the lighting dragon had promised to keep him updated on anything of importance that happened in the guild, both of the mages knew that Lucy hated missing out on information when she was gone from the guildhall for long periods of time, but he didn’t think that much was going on to get two calls in one day. Let alone three calls in twelve consecutive hours. Laxus had called him the previous night to inform him that Fairy Tail was taking in a new dragon slayer and to let Wendy know. Then he called earlier that morning with an update on how they planned on working out the training schedule with Sting and Rogue. Now he was getting another call from the lightning dragon, only this time it seemed more urgent.   
“Erza found Jellal and Meredy. You guys have to hurry. Erza’s trying to kill Jellal. Meredy gave us a general idea of where they are and it seems you’re not too far from it by Warren’s guess.” Laxus repeated everything Meredy had told his grandfather before hanging up.   
“Open Gate of the Maiden: Virgo!” Lucy called out immediately after the call ended. Virgo appeared in a shimmer of gold in front of Lucy with a smile on her face.   
“Punishment Princess?” Lucy shook her head at the maid spirit.   
“I need you to help us stop Erza from harming Jellal and Meredy. Can you dig a hole under her and keep her in it until we can get her to calm down?” Lucy asked as she immediately began running in the direction that Laxus had indicated to them. Bickslow and Wendy were behind her as Virgo followed next to her.   
“Once we get her in that hole and can keep her from moving I can use my eyes on her to subdue her and we can get her back to Fairy Tail.” Bickslow added a frown on his face at the thought of having to use his eye magic on someone he considered a friend. Desperate times called for desperate measures and this was certainly one of those desperate times.   
The sounds of fighting drew the group’s attention and Virgo immediately leaped into action. She drilled into the ground and popped up just meters away from where the first was. Once she was certain that it was Erza and Jellal fighting, she waited until the two were just far enough apart from each other to drill a hole under Erza and pull her into it. She even went so far as to fill part of it in to keep Erza from moving around too much when Bickslow used his Figure Eyes on her.  
Lucy, Wendy, and Bickslow arrived only moments later. Wendy immediately went over to Jellal to tend to his wounds while Lucy and Bickslow went to Erza to take care of her. Erza fought against the earth restraining her when she noticed Bickslow removing his visor. Lucy distracted the Requip mage by asking her why she was harming her friends. Erza didn’t respond but the glare she threw at Lucy was enough to give the celestial mage an indication that something was definitely wrong with the redhead mage.   
Erza had been so focused on Lucy that she hadn’t realized that Bickslow finished removing the visor that covered his eyes until he called out to her to grab her attention. She didn’t have time to close her eyes before Bickslow had caught her soul with his magic and forced her to stop struggling against her restraints. Before he allowed Virgo to release the Requip mage, he took a moment to read her soul. There was something pushing against his own magic, something dark and sinister that was clouding her own judgment.   
“Wendy, when you get a chance, will you come take a look at Erza. I sense something dark inside of her.” Bickslow called out before he gave Virgo the go-ahead to release Erza from her restraints.   
“Will you be able to keep control of her until we get back to Fairy Tail?” Lucy asked, concerned, as she looked between her two friends.   
“Yeah, it’s dark but it doesn’t have control of her soul yet. It’s planted its roots in her soul but hasn’t been there long enough to get the strength it needs to take over.” Bickslow wasn’t even sure what it was he was dealing with, let alone how to describe it to the celestial mage. It seemed that Lucy was satisfied with what he had said as she moved over to the pink haired mage and pulled her into a tight hug. Meredy was doing her best to keep from freaking out over the state Jellal was in but it was hard seeing him covered in so much blood.   
“It’ll be okay Meredy. We’re going to fix this.” She said as she pulled the mage off to the side to let Wendy work her magic. Erza had wounded Jellal more than he had wounded her and the sky dragon wanted to take care of as many of those wounds as she could before they got moving. 

Bickslow struggled to keep Erza under his control; not because of the dark presence in her soul but because he had never wanted to use this magic on his nakama. After he had his ass kicked by Lucy and Loke during the battle of Fairy Tail he had made a promise to himself that he wouldn’t use his Figure Eyes on his nakama unless he absolutely had to and while he knew this was one of those moments, it still tore him up to do so.   
Bickslow jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning, he looked up to see Lucy standing over him with a soft smile gazing down at the seith mage.   
“You okay Bickslow?” She asked as she took a seat next to him. She knew how hard this was for him, but she had complete faith in him that he wouldn’t let them down as he controlled Erza until they got to the guildhall.   
“I didn’t want to do this Cosplayer. It hurts to have to put Erza under my control like this.” Bickslow couldn’t like to Lucy, not when she could see how much he was struggling with his own emotions. The celestial mage hugged her friend tightly.   
“You’re doing this for the best of not only the guild but for Erza’s sake as well. If you hadn’t realized something was wrong with her soul we wouldn’t know how to handle her. You can help keep her from hurting anyone else that she cares about and especially from hurting herself. Only you can do this Bicks.” Lucy was doing the best she could to comfort her friend but also reassure him that what he was doing was right. He needed to have a clear head before they began walking back to Magnolia so he could keep a tight leash on his hold on Erza’s soul.   
“Thanks, Lucy. You know just what to say to people, you know that?” Bickslow already felt better about the fact that he was using his magic on someone he cared about. Lucy put it into perspective for him just how much good he was doing by using a magic he had hated for so long. 

Wendy spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between healing Jellal and examining Erza to see if she could identify what had taken hold of her. By the time the sun had set, she had determined that she needed more experienced researchers on her side and access to the guild’s library in order to determine what it was they were dealing with. Though, she had been able to determine that the dark influence Bickslow had sensed in Erza’s soul had been a spell cast upon her. Bickslow called Laxus back and informed him of the turn of events, including the fact that she was under the influence of something dark that was making her do things to hurt the people she cared about. Lucy had asked for Levy and Freed to begin research on how they could break the hold this thing had on Erza.   
The group chose to rest for the night, allowing Wendy to recover her energy as well and would begin to make their way to Magnolia in the morning.


End file.
